Etihad to pay Rs 1.1 lakh for cancelled Hyderabad-Dubai-NY flight

Hyderabad : The Hyderabad Consumer Court has ordered Etihad Airways to pay Rs 1,11,248 to a customer after it failed to refund or reschedule a passenger’s tickets after his flight from Hyderabad to New York, via Dubai, was cancelled due to COVID-19 in 2021.

Etihad was ordered to pay an additional Rs 20,000 as compensation, along with 9% interest from the cancellation to date, included in the total amount to be returned. It must comply within 45 days from June 27, or it will incur an additional 3% interest. It was also asked to pay Rs 10,000 as legal costs.

The passenger, who had lodged a complaint with the consumer forum in February 2021, had approached Etihad’s Mehdipatnam office to book his flight tickets to New York from Hyderabad with a stopover in Dubai, via Abu Dhabi.

After the flights were cancelled, the complainant claimed that despite several attempts to contact the airlines, they failed to refund or reschedule the tickets. However, Etihad claimed that the complainant stated that the complaint was made to the airline in July 2021, well after the extended deadline of March 2022.

Etihad had previously extended the refund or deferral deadline from October to March due to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, an email to Etihad customer service dated May 2022 was found, indicating that it had filed an appeal within the deadline.