SpiceJet flyers seeking refunds may have to wait for a few days

The airline has promised refunds within 10 days, but there is a rush

The flight cancellations, as many as 1,800, by budget-carrier SpiceJet has left thousands of passengers in the lurch. Many who had booked months in advance for the December holidays were scrambling for refunds.

While the airline has promised refunds within 10 days and has deployed additional manpower in its customer-care department, the extra measures have been inadequate to deal with the volume of calls and emails it has received in the past few days.

A SpiceJet spokesperson said the affected passengers could contact the call centre or email requests for refunds or re-bookings. Alternatively passengers could approach the airline's office at the airport.

"Passengers have the option of taking an instant refund in the form of eCash for use in future bookings, or getting a refund into their bank accounts or credit cards in line with the payment mode used at the time of booking," said a spokesperson of Yatra.com.

Amit Agarwal, co-founder of Trip Factory, which powers the holiday package business of SpiceJet, said the company was re-booking  affected customers on other airlines.

The SpiceJet spokesperson added the airline makes refund payments by issuing cheques even when the ticket is purchased paying cash from airport counters.

A travel agent pointed out refunds were being paid but there were delays. “There is a bit of uncertainty about their operations. Passengers are not getting timely response from the call centre and refunds are being delayed.”

SpiceJet said there could be one to two days’ delay in refund claims but that would be due to administrative reasons, as the number of claims was high. The number of grievance calls to the airline is up exponentially and many passengers who had called up said no one answered the call or found the line busy.

Travel agents also pointed out tickets refunds were getting delayed while some passengers complained there was no information whether SpiceJet would re-book affected passengers on other airlines.

The spokesperson conceded that it was difficult for the staff to attend to all the calls promptly due to the very large volume. “Our customer experience team is working round the clock,'' he said.

The airline has added extra phone lines and staff at customer care. Earlier this week, SpiceJet said it had provided refunds of all bookings for cancelled flights made directly with the airline (credit card or cash) within an average of 10 days, with no deduction of any kind. Service charges and deductions, if any, by travel agents was not in SpiceJet’s control, the airline had said.