□ Zhang Limei
Mr. Gong from Shanghai bought a ticket worth 6338,1 yuan (tax included) on an airline app. One minute after payment, Mr. Gong found that he had bought the wrong date and immediately chose to "unsubscribe", but he did not expect to receive a refund of only 269 yuan. (January 1, National Business Daily)
After the fermentation of public opinion, this "high refund fee" incident has been satisfactorily resolved. An airline reached a preliminary negotiation plan with Mr. Gong, a consumer, and Mr. Gong purchased another ticket by himself, and the airline promised to compensate for the price difference and the "change fee", which means that Mr. Gong did not have any loss in this refund.
In fact, it is not uncommon for consumers to encounter unreasonable charges such as "high refund fees", and many passengers have had similar experiences: a few minutes after placing an order, the plane ticket can only be refunded a very small fee. "High refund fees" have occurred frequently, and the high refund fees for air tickets have been repeatedly complained. In the final analysis, the main reason is that the ticket refund and change mechanism and charging standards are unilaterally formulated by the airlines, and there is a lack of effective external constraints and supervision.
Although the Notice on Improving Civil Aviation Ticketing Services issued and implemented by the Civil Aviation Administration of China on July 2018, 7 stipulates that airlines should formulate "tiered rates" for ticket refund and change fees, that is, set reasonable tiered charging standards according to different fare levels and time nodes, etc., and cannot simply stipulate that special tickets are not allowed to be refunded or changed. But what the reasonable standard is, there is no refinement. As a result, in order to protect their own economic interests, airlines often follow the rule that "the higher the discount, the higher the proportion of refund and change fees", and formulate unreasonable and unfair charging standards. In the above-mentioned "high refund fee" incident, consumers just bought a ticket and chose to cancel the subscription, which caused little loss to the airline, but the airline deducted the high handling fee according to the standard set by itself, which is obviously unreasonable, which is the root cause of the anger of the majority of netizens.
Therefore, to end the phenomenon of "high refund fees", we cannot stop at handling cases on a case-by-case basis, nor can we expect airlines to reduce the refund and change fees for air tickets on their own, but also need to be regulated by the regulatory authorities.
On the one hand, the competent civil aviation authorities should issue guiding opinions on ticket refunds and changes, standardize airlines' refund and change fees and fees in line with the principle of fairness that balances the reasonable economic benefits of airlines and the legitimate rights and interests of consumers, and promote the rationalization of ticket refund and change deduction standards.
On the other hand, airlines should fulfill their obligation to inform and fully protect consumers' right to know and choose. In the process of ticket sales, airlines and ticketing platforms shall remind ticket purchasers of the handling fee standards for refunds and changes in the form of pop-up notifications, and clearly inform consumers of the relevant rules for ticket refunds and changes.