NEW DELHI: Air travellers will no longer have to pay a fee to check in at airport counters. Following a flurry of complaints, the aviation ministry has directed airlines to immediately cease levying the fee. Airlines charge about Rs 200 per passenger for this service. However, at a time when record high jet fuel prices and a record low rupee-US dollar exchange rate have forced airlines to raise fares dramatically, this will only provide marginal relief to domestic passengers who prefer to stand in serpentine airport lines to check-in rather than doing so online.
Mandatory web check-in was one of the key conditions that allowed regular domestic flights to resume on May 25, 2020, after a two-month suspension. The government also instituted domestic fare buckets, which established the minimum and maximum fares that airlines could charge for various domestic routes based on distance and flight time.
‘The imposition of a fee on passengers checking in at airports was a commercial decision made by airlines’. Now that the ministry is deciding what can and cannot be charged (which was supposed to be a decision for airlines), domestic airfare bands must be removed as well. Despite the steep increase in jet fuel prices and steep depreciation of the US dollar, these fare bands (now applicable on a 15-day rolling basis) have not been revised.
Meanwhile, the ministry order titled ‘no additional charges for issuing boarding passes at airlines counters’ issued on Thursday stated: ‘directed to refer to (domestic flight resumption order of May 2020)… indicating passengers have to ensure that the web check-in and generate boarding pass… airlines (were advised to) encourage, facilitate, and guide air passengers for making timely web check – in and bag tag printing and minimise / avoid penal charge on non – web – check – in traveling passengers.’
It went on to say that charging a few dollars for airport check-in is ‘not in accordance’ with the rules. ‘ In light of the foregoing, airlines are advised not to charge any additional amount for issuing boarding passes at airport check-in counters, as the same cannot be considered within the ‘tariff’ as provided under (rules),’ the statement said.
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