The Centre directed online travel portals to process pending refunds on air ticket bookings during the coronavirus-induced lockdown by the third week of November.
A nationwide lockdown was imposed during the coronavirus pandemic for varying periods starting March 25, 2020, and scheduled commercial flight services were suspended for a certain period.
On Wednesday, the Consumer Affairs Ministry held a meeting with online travel aggregators to discuss issues prejudicial to consumer interest in the travel sector.
At the meeting, chaired by consumer affairs secretary Rohit Kumar Singh, the issue of non-refund of tickets booked during the COVID-19 lockdown was discussed.
Later, an official release said that travel aggregators have been asked to disburse the pending refunds affected by the COVID-19 lockdown within the end of the third week of this month.
"Further, the establishment of an Ombudsman for time-bound resolution of consumer grievances was also deliberated. The Ministry of Civil Aviation and the Department of Consumer Affairs can jointly work on the modalities involved in establishing the same," the release said.
Another proposal made during the meeting was to integrate the National Consumer Helpline with the Air Sewa Portal for effective resolution of consumer complaints.
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