In order to standardize the order of aviation ticketing services and effectively safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of consumers, in accordance with the responsibilities entrusted by the "Consumer Rights Protection Law of the People's Republic of China" and the Implementation Regulations of the Consumer Rights Protection Law of the People's Republic of China, on November 6, the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Consumers Association organized a briefing on the results of the investigation of ticket refunds and changes. Air China, China Southern Airlines, China Southern Airlines Ten airlines including China Eastern Airlines, Hainan Airlines, Xiamen Airlines, Sichuan Airlines, Tianjin Airlines, Juneyao Airlines, Spring Airlines, and Hebei Airlines, as well as five online ticketing platforms including Ctrip, Qunar, Fliggy, Tongcheng Travel, and Tuniu, participated in the meeting. The Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Consumers Association urged relevant companies to conduct comprehensive self-examination and provide feedback on rectification before December 10.
It is understood that the Consumers Association of Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei launched a special investigation on air ticket cancellations and changes in September this year. Through a combination of online questionnaires, experiential surveys and case collections, it conducted an in-depth review of the cancellation and ticketing links. In response to the problems discovered in the investigation, it urged relevant companies to make rectifications in aspects such as unclear disclosure of cancellation and ticketing rules, irregular charging behavior, and insufficient rights protection.
Three major problems affect the consumer experience of cancellation, change and rebooking
The rules are not clearly announced. 37.7% of the respondents said that they need to click and jump multiple times to find the rules for cancellation, change and rebooking. 58% of the respondents have only heard of the tiered rates and do not understand their specific rules and deduction standards.
Charging behavior is irregular. The experiential survey found that the actual deductions on some platforms were inconsistent with the public standards; if the flight time was adjusted due to airline reasons, the airlines still deducted fees based on personal reasons of the passengers; the ticket prices on different platforms of the same airline were similar but the refund fees were significantly different; after the flight was cancelled, the additional fees bundled by some platforms were not refunded.
Rights protection protection is insufficient. The survey shows that among the respondents who defended their rights, 73.7% said they could only receive partial compensation, and 10.3% of the respondents had their rights demands directly rejected or received no feedback.
In addition, the investigation found that the information display settings on some platform pages are differentiated. Preferential prices are displayed in large red fonts, and fee details, relevant rules, etc. are displayed in small black fonts. It often appears that "the price is cheap when looking, but the price is high when buying."
Three aspects urge enterprises to make rectifications within a time limit
In response to the above problems, the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Consumers Association proposed three rectification directions.
Optimize rule formulation and publicity. All enterprises should display the rules for refunds and changes in conspicuous places such as the official APP, official website, reservation page, settlement page, etc., and clearly list key information such as conditions for refunds and changes, deduction ratios, time nodes, etc., and shall not reduce the visibility of the rules by folding menus, weakening fonts, etc.; online ticketing platforms shall not use differentiated fonts, color contrast, etc. to induce consumers to ignore fee details and restrictions, and ensure that the displayed fare is consistent with the actual settlement amount. At the same time, bundled consumption of other items should not be checked by default.
Standardize charging standards and behavior. It is necessary to formulate a "tiered rate" for ticket cancellation, change and rebooking charges, and set reasonable tiered charging standards based on different fare levels and time points. It cannot simply stipulate that "specially priced tickets are not allowed to be refunded or rebooked", and the refund fee must not be higher than the actual sales price of the ticket; for long-term refunds , short-term refunds, short-term mistaken purchases and other scenarios, it is recommended to relax the conditions for free refunds and changes, and set a reasonable error correction period for short-term mistaken purchases; if the flight time is adjusted due to airline reasons, fees shall not be deducted based on the passenger's personal reasons, and if the passenger involuntarily changes the ticket, no change fee shall be charged. Online ticketing platform charges should be consistent with airline rules, and no additional fees should be charged; fees will be deducted strictly in accordance with the announcement, and additional services will be refunded simultaneously with the ticket. At the same time, airlines must accurately provide ticketing agents with the rules for cancellations and changes. Ticketing agents are not allowed to change the carrier's service regulations without authorization. They must strengthen the supervision and management of agents. Agents that change the standards for cancellations or changes without authorization or increase fees in violation of regulations shall be dealt with in accordance with the rules to ensure that the details of deductions for each channel are traceable and the standards are unified.
Improve the efficiency and effectiveness of rights protection. All airlines and online ticketing platforms should establish a special account for complaints about cancellations, changes, and ticket changes, clarify the time limits for complaint acceptance, processing, and feedback, ensure that passenger complaints are accepted and fed back on time, and that consumers can easily contact manual customer service. Technical barriers must not be set up to hinder consumers from communicating with manual customer service. Proactively publicize the complaint entrance and contact information, simplify the complaint process, and establish a rapid verification and disposal mechanism for problems encountered by consumers such as opaque rules, unreasonable deductions, and non-refundable bundled fees, so as to effectively reduce the cost of rights protection and improve consumer satisfaction.
All participating companies stated that they will carefully conduct self-examination and self-correction based on problems, strictly implement rectification requirements, and provide timely feedback on rectification progress. In the next step, the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Consumers Association will continue to track and supervise the implementation of rectifications. For companies that fail to make rectifications or refuse to make rectifications, further measures will be taken in accordance with relevant laws and regulations to effectively safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of consumers.
