New Delhi26 February. The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has amended the rules for refund of air ticket fares and made them more passenger friendly. Under the new rules, air passengers can now cancel or change their tickets without any extra charges within 48 hours of booking. However, this will depend on certain conditions. The revised rules were issued on 24 February.

The DGCA, while amending the rules, also said that if the passenger points out any mistake in the name within 24 hours of booking and the ticket has been booked directly through the airline’s website, then the airline companies should not charge any extra fee for the correction in the name of the same person.

DGCA said, ‘In case of tickets purchased through travel agents/portals, the responsibility of refund will be of the airline companies as the agents are their appointed representatives. Airline companies will have to ensure that the process of refunding the money is completed within 14 working days.

Apart from this, changes have also been made in the rules for cancellation of tickets of passengers due to medical emergencies. In view of the increasing complaints from passengers about not getting refunds on time, amendments have been made in the Civil Aviation Requirements (CAR) for refund of air tickets.

The issue of ticket refund also came to the fore during the cancellation of Indigo flights in December 2025. At that time, the Civil Aviation Ministry had directed the airline companies to make refunds within the stipulated time. In fact, scheduled airlines received a total of 29,212 complaints to passengers in December 2025, of which 7.5 percent were to ‘refunds’.

Now airlines have been directed to provide passengers the option to ‘look in’ i.e. update the ticket for a period of 48 hours after booking it. The regulator said, ‘During this period, passengers can cancel or modify their tickets without any extra charges. But the fare for the revised flight for which you want to take a ticket, i.e. the difference in fare, will have to be paid.

“When tickets are booked directly through the airline’s website, this facility will not be available for flights whose departure date is less than seven days from the date of booking in case of domestic flights and less than 15 days for international flights,” the regulator said. After 48 hours of booking time, this option will not be available and the passenger will have to pay the relevant cancellation charges for amendment.

According to the regulator, in case of ticket cancellation due to medical emergency, the airline company may refund the money or provide a ‘credit’ option. Under this, if the passenger or any member of the family listed in the same PNR is admitted to the hospital during the journey, then this rule will be applicable.

DGCA said that in all other circumstances, the money will be refunded after the passenger receives a certificate of ‘fitness’ to travel from the airline’s aerospace medicine specialist/aerospace medicine specialist empaneled by DGCA.