Consumer Dispute Settlement Commission, Decided to Repay Some of Plane Cancellation Fees

-Apply Revised Fair Trade Commission conditions that consumers had to pay different fees depending on the cancellation time-

    Consumer Dispute Settlement Commission of KCA applied revised domestic airline companies’ regulation to help consumers get cancellation fee refunds partially for consumers who canceled their bookings 66 days prior to departure date and ask for refund.

     So far, domestic airline companies’ condition stipulates that companies shall impose the same cancellation fees regardless of when a consumer cancels. However, this condition has been under criticism not only for making consumers and airline companies difficult to resolve disputes regarding cancellation fee, but making some companies refuse to follow coordinated result.

    To solve these problems, on June 29, 2016, Consumer Dispute Settlement Commission(CDSC) hosted “seminar to formulate reasonable solutions on consumer disputes in airline service sector” and created social consensus that a standardization of cancellation fee condition is needed. Thereby, on September, Fair Trade Commission revised domestic airline companies’ conditions to differentiate cancellation fee depending on a time consumer cancelled.

    Therefore, except for special price tickets (more than 70% discount), consumers can freely cancel their bookings without paying for an additional cancellation fees and in case where a consumer wants to cancel within 90 days of departure date, a consumer has to pay cancellation fees according to each company’s revised conditions.

    The airline company in question mentioned in this case, revised its condition to refund 22% of cancellation fee if a consumer cancels booking 30 days prior to departure, 13% for 31~60days, and 6% for 61~90 days. CDSC partially applied Fair Trade Commission’s revised conditions, and for 3 tickets mentioned above, the airline company decided to refund 23,000 won for each adult, and 25,000 for a child.

    CDSC announced that thanks to the mediation decision of laying out clear conditions for cancellation fee, which takes a large share of consumer disputes in airline sector, it is expected that not only the number of potential consumer disputes decreases but also possibilities of reaching mediation will increase.