Fliers up in arms against convenience charge

At a time when the union finance minister is promising to give tax rebates and benefits for usage of credit/debit cards during transactions, the air passenger's association claims that airlines are needlessly pocketing Rs75 to Rs150 as 'convenience' charges from passengers who book through their website. Ironically, online payment reduces the operation cost of an airline.

Air Passengers Association of India (APAI) has taken up the issue with aviation regulator DGCA and written to its chief M Sathiyavathy urging her to take action against such airlines.

In the letter, president of APAI Sudhakar Reddy states: "The question is why this convenience fee at all? Does a petrol depot charge convenience fees if I pay through cards? No. Does an insurance company charge convenience fee if I pay online premium through cards? No. Does a store charge convenience fee when instead of paying cash you pay through cards? No, Same is the case when you make payment for your mobile bill and various other services like electricity, property tax and what have you."

Finance minister Arun Jaitley last month promised to incentivise card payments by offering VAT rebate to establishments and merchants accepting cards and income tax rebate to consumers making card payments beyond a
specified threshold. "He must prevail upon the trade to not make things difficult for customers by charging outrageous fees like convenience fees," Reddy added.

Sighting an example, the letter states: "IndiGo Airlines' website says with effect from 1 May 2015, the convenience fees is Rs75 per passenger if payment is made through net banking or cash cards and Rs150 per passenger if payment is made through credit/debit cards when booking is made from its website. It pays online agents like Cleartrip, Makemytrip etc. two per cent transaction fee in addition to the year-end bonus based on volume generated for the airline by them. The agents too on their part charge convenience fees for online payments. Thus, direct booking i.e., through the airlines' website, should be cheaper but then it is always not the case because often the agents, confident of earning year-end bonuses, offer discounts to woo customers from airlines' website as well as from competing online agents."

The letter also mentions about Jet Airways and other airlines which charge Rs100 as convenience fees.

Sathiyavathy was unavailable for comment.