Airlines Defy Government's Directive | Refuses Refund For Cancelled Tickets

I just don't understand WHY.

Why big corporations are so terribly insensitive towards the weaker section of our society? 

Why is it that, that only the fragile ones are always at the receiving end when a setback befalls on a larger scale? 

We have witnessed lakhs of crores of Rupees being written off from bank ledgers, but on the other hand, a poor farmer somewhere has to lose his life for a little debt. This COVID-19 pandemic had nothing to do with us commoners, but predictably we are the ones, who are primarily at the receiving end. Many of us have lost our income sources, but we will be struggling extremely hard to pay off the compounded interest being charged on our loan amount each passing day. I do not want to sound political in my tone; hence I'll keep this aside for you to reason it out yourself.

Lately, I had booked 4 Pax flight tickets with SpiceJet but unfortunately, due to the Covid-19 situation the flight got cancelled. I was not refunded; instead, I was told to use the amount as a credit shell for my future booking. FYI, this credit shell can be used within a stipulated timeframe for the same flyers and on the same route. This doesn't make sense to me at all. If someone had booked air travel for a particular event, say marriage, funeral, etc. do they anticipate the reoccurrence of the aforementioned likes of the event? First of all, Airlines have absolutely no right to block our money because it is them who were not able to provide us with the service and secondly, even if they are illegally blocking the funds, you can use the so-called credit shell only for same flyers on the same route, what sense does it make? 

Anyway, when I tried to book another set of tickets in the near future, the SpiceJet ticket fares were more than double the price of fares that GoAir was offering. Why on earth should I still book my travel with SpiceJet for 2x + the price for that same route on that same day and almost a similar departure time? Helpless towards my nature of not getting into the hustle and bustle, I booked my ticket with SpiceJet and used the credit shell, but they did deduct the convenience fee on all the 4 tickets that got cancelled, mind you. 

UPDATE on 03/06/2020: It seems SpiceJet has made some changes into the Credit Shall Policy and have confirmed that the Credit Shell can be used for travels to any route regardless of the cancelled ticket route.

The new booking was made. All set to fly on 2nd June 2020 but then I receive a cancellation message on my phone on the night of 31st May (refer SS below). When I reached out to SpiceJet for refund, they responded their inability to initiate the refund for a reason best known to them. Not sure, from where do they get such audacity to dishonour even official directives. Saying this because on 16-04-2020, Directorate General of Civil Aviation has issued Circular# AV-29011/27/2020-DT that clearly directs the airlines to issue a full refund.

Seems like people of our nation has been taken for granted by these corporations and this will continue to worsen if we do not wake up. My advice to you is to seek for a full refund if you are one of those whose hard-earned money has been illegally frozen by an airline which failed to provide you with a service in return for which you actually paid for. 

Following is the Twitter conversation with SpiceJet.

Seems like they just attracted a legal proceeding towards them.

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Thanks for reading.