Covid-19: Full refund if you booked air tickets from March 25 to April 14

Many have been complaining on social media as airlines have decided not to give refunds in cash for cancelled flights and are instead issuing credit for future travel.

The Civil Aviation Ministry on Thursday said the passengers who had booked flight tickets during the first phase of lockdown for travel up to May 3 must get a full refund from the airlines without any cancellation charges if they ask for it. Many have been complaining on social media as airlines have decided not to give refunds in cash for cancelled flights and are instead issuing credit for future travel.

Zoom not a safe platform, says MHA advisory

The Ministry of Home Affairs said in an advisory that video conferencing software Zoom is not a safe platform, and is not for use by government offices or officials. Earlier, Zoom CEO Eric Yuan had apologised for the company failing to fully implement its usual geo-fencing best practices, while assuring customers that there was no impact on Zoom for Government Cloud, a separate cloud service for government customers.

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Maha tally crosses 3K-mark, 2,073 of these in Mumbai

As many as 286 new cases of COVID-19 were detected in Maharashtra, taking the tally beyond the 3,200-mark on Thursday, while the fatality count inched towards the 200-level with seven more deaths, most of them senior citizens, said a state health official. With the detection of fresh cases in the last 24 hours, Maharashtra has so far reported 3,202 coronavirus cases, the highest for a state in the country, while the death toll is now 194, he added…Read Full Story

‘Golden age’ for aviation sector; huge opportunities ahead: IndiGo chief

Bringing ATF under the Goods and Services Tax (GST) has been a long pending demand of the airline industry

With strong fundamentals, India’s civil aviation sector is in its “golden age” and there is also healthy competition among domestic carriers, IndiGo CEO Ronojoy Dutta has said. Interestingly, the country’s civil aviation sector has been experiencing lower growth in traffic compared to previous years and there has also been softness in fares in October, according to industry experts.

The traffic grew just 1.18 per cent in September, as per the latest available official data.IndiGo, owned by InterGlobe Aviation, is the country’s largest airline with a market share of 48.2 per cent in September. While acknowledging that there are problems, including high taxes on jet fuel, Dutta said there are huge opportunities going forward.

“We are in the golden age of Indian aviation and there are huge opportunities going forward… There are always problems, there are always issues and economic cycles. (But) The fundamentals are strong,” he told PTI in an interview. According to him, tax on aviation turbine fuel (ATF) is 30 per cent higher than rest of the world. Bringing ATF under the Goods and Services Tax (GST) has been a long pending demand of the airline industry. “Then there are throughput charges for which we should be getting credit for taxes paid,” he added.

IndiGo has been aggressively expanding its operations and has started 11 overseas routes in the last one year. Recently, it placed an order for 300 more planes from Airbus and is also considering wide-body aircraft for long haul routes. On whether there is healthy competition among local carriers, Dutta replied in the affirmative…