Around 61% of airline passengers surveyed in India experienced one or more flight cancellations in the last 12 months due to internal airline reasons, according to LocalCircles, a community social media platform.

The survey, which received over 50,000 responses from airline passengers located in 302 districts of India, says 25,547 flights were cancelled between January 2022 and September 2024, impacting 10.67 lakh flyers; IndiGo accounted for 60.53%, or 15,464 of these.

The respondents rue that they lose 50-100% in penalties when they cancel a flight, but airlines don’t pay anything when they cancel flights. "The fliers remain at a disadvantage as 56% of fliers surveyed who cancelled a flight booking in the last 12 months lost 50-100% of their booking/ticket amount in cancellation fee and penalties while those who suffered delays and harassment due to cancellation of flight due to internal airline reasons, received no compensation," says the survey.

It found that no consumer who experienced flight cancellations due to internal airline reasons in the last 12 months, received any compensation, while 22% struggled to even get their refund.

The survey claims IndiGo, which had the highest cancellations, spent the least Rs 18,000 in 2022, but nothing in 2023 or 2024 for a total of 5.47 lakh passengers impacted by cancellations.

The percentage of fliers surveyed who experienced flight cancellations due to internal reasons of the airline dropped from 74% to 61% in the last 12 months.

Besides, around 22% of those surveyed stated that they struggled to even get the basic ticket refund without delay. The data shows that from January to September 2024, as many as 5.34 lakh passengers were impacted, as compared to 2.20 lakh passengers in 2022 and 3.12 lakh in 2023. "One in every three domestic flights (33%) was delayed between January-November 2024."

It reveals that passengers "want to see some penalty introduced for airlines", which cancel flights in the form of a reimbursement as well as a no delay ticket amount refund policy.