Air passenger rights in India: delays, cancellations, and refunds
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When a flight to, from, or within India goes sideways, you're not powerless. Air passenger rights in India are set out in the country's Passenger Charter, a set of rules drawn up by the Ministry of Civil Aviation and enforced by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation, the DGCA. They cover denied boarding, cancellations, and long delays, and they apply to Indian and foreign airlines alike.
Set your expectations the right way: the cash amounts are capped and fairly modest. But these are real obligations, not goodwill gestures, and depending on what went wrong they can mean meals and a hotel room, a refund, or a cash payout. Here's what the Charter covers, and how to claim what you're owed.
AT A GLANCE
Your India flight rights at a glance
The Passenger Charter applies to every flight to, from, and within India, whatever the airline's nationality
Bumped from an overbooked flight? Up to ₹20,000 (~$215) in compensation
A last-minute cancellation can pay up to ₹10,000 (~$108)
Delays bring no cash, but the airline owes you meals and, on a long wait, a rebooking or refund
Overnight holdups of 6+ hours on flights scheduled between 8 p.m. and 3 a.m.: a free hotel
Force majeure (extraordinary circumstances) lets the airline off the hook for compensation
What is the DGCA Passenger Charter?
India's air passenger rights aren't bundled into a single statute. They come from a binding regulation, the Civil Aviation Requirements (CAR), and specifically from CAR Section 3, Series M, Part IV, issued by the DGCA and last updated in August 2024. The Ministry of Civil Aviation repackages these rules in plain language as the Passenger Charter, but the legal teeth are in the CAR: an airline can't waive it or hand you less than it lays out.
Coverage is broad. The rules reach every scheduled flight that departs from, arrives in, or operates within India, no matter where the carrier is based. A New York to Delhi nonstop, a Delhi to Mumbai domestic hop, and a Bengaluru to San Francisco round-trip all sit under the same Charter.
Flight delay compensation in India: care, not cash
Travelers searching for flight delay compensation in India usually expect a payout figure. There isn't one. A late flight here never converts into a cash payment, no matter how many hours pile up. The flight delay rules in India swap the check for something else: a tiered set of services that grows as the wait drags on, nearly all of it resting on a single condition, that you showed up and checked in on time.
It works as three stages that open up one after another.
Short delay (2+ hours):
Once the wait hits the threshold, the airline owes you food and drinks.
Delay of 6+ hours:
Past six hours, you can take a rebooking or your money back.
Overnight delay:
A long late-night wait means a hotel room on the airline.
Short delay (2+ hours)
Stage one is the simplest: cross the waiting threshold and the carrier has to cover your meals. The threshold itself slides depending on how long the flight was meant to be, measured by block time, the flight's full planned duration from gate to gate, not merely the stretch spent airborne.
Up to 2.5 hours of block time: meals start at a 2-hour delay
Between 2.5 and 5 hours: at 3 hours
Anything longer: at 4 hours
Delay of 6+ hours
Once a domestic flight crosses six hours late, you no longer have to sit it out: the airline must offer either a replacement leaving within six hours or the full fare back. This applies when the carrier reschedules ahead of time, more than 24 hours before the original departure, rather than springing the delay on you at the counter.
Overnight delay
Stage three is the most generous. Two situations put the airline on the hook for a hotel room and the transport to and from it: a delay that stretches past 24 hours, or a delay past six hours on a flight that was due out in the overnight window, between 8 p.m. and 3 a.m.
Did you know?
If your flight departs from the EU, the UK, Turkey, or Saudi Arabia, or is operated by a carrier based in one of these regions, you may be protected by air passenger rights laws with flight delay compensation (up to $650 under EU Regulation EC 261).
Check if your flight qualifies ⬇️
Flight cancellation compensation in India: the 24-hour rule
A canceled flight is the one disruption in India that can entitle you to a cash payment, not just meals and a hotel. Whether it does comes down to a single number: how many hours' warning the airline gave you, with the 24-hour mark before departure as the dividing line.
More than 24 hours' notice (up to two weeks)
If the airline notifies you more than 24 hours ahead, but inside the final two weeks, and the airline's job is a straightforward swap: it has to let you choose between a rebooking and your fare returned in full. No monetary compensation applies at this stage.
Under 24 hours' notice (or a lost connection)
Cross inside that 24-hour window, or lose a connection that was booked on the one ticket, and the math changes. You still pick between a rebooking and a full refund, but now a cash payment comes with it. What you collect scales with the flight's block time:
Flight block time | Compensation |
|---|---|
Up to 1 hour | Up to ₹5,000 (~$54) |
1-2 hours | Up to ₹7,500 (~$81) |
Over 2 hours | Up to ₹10,000 (~$108) |
One catch on those figures: you get whichever is smaller, the cap shown here or your one-way base fare plus fuel charge.
Denied boarding compensation in India
Overbooking is legal in India, and when an airline sells more tickets than there are seats, someone has to be left behind. If you held a confirmed seat, checked in on time, and still didn't make it aboard, the denied boarding rules protect you. Before anyone is forced off, the airline has to look for volunteers first, offering perks in exchange for a later flight. Only when too few step forward does it become involuntary denied boarding, and that's what triggers compensation.
The amount tracks how fast the airline can get you moving again:
Situation | What you get |
|---|---|
Rebooked within 1 hour | No compensation |
Rebooked within 24 hours | Up to ₹10,000 (~$108) |
Rebooked after 24+ hours | Up to ₹20,000 (~$215) |
Behind those caps sits a formula: 200% of your one-way base fare plus fuel charge for a same-day fix, doubling to 400% if the wait runs past 24 hours or you walk away from the offer.
When compensation doesn't apply (force majeure)
The compensation rules have a built-in limit. When a disruption is caused by something the airline could not control, no compensation is owed. The Charter sets these apart as force majeure events, and the recognized categories are specific:
Extreme weather and natural disasters
Political instability, civil unrest, or armed conflict
Decisions made by air traffic control
Security threats
The key point is that the list is narrow. The exemption applies only when the cause genuinely falls into one of these categories, so an airline cannot invoke it for problems within its own control, such as staffing gaps or aircraft maintenance.
More passenger rights in India
Compensation for delays, cancellations, and denied boarding is only part of the picture. Your airline customer rights in India also cover a handful of less obvious situations, each one useful to understand before your next trip.
Filing a flight compensation claim in India
Knowing your airline customer rights in India is one thing; getting an airline to honor them is another. If a carrier doesn't deliver, there's a clear path to claiming what you're owed, best worked through in order.
1. Pin down what you're owed
Before anything else, get clear on what you're actually entitled to, whether from the sections on this page or from the Charter directly. You're owed this information at the airport as well: airlines have to post a notice on your compensation and assistance rights at check-in and at the boarding gate.
2. Take it to the airline first
The airline is your first stop. File your claim at the help desk in the departure or arrival terminal, or submit it online. If you were denied boarding or your flight was canceled, the airline also has to give you a written notice spelling out the compensation and assistance rules that apply.
3. Escalate if the airline stalls
No response, or a brush-off? Lodge a grievance through AirSewa (airsewa.gov.in), the government's complaints platform for air travel, available as both a site and an app. If that still leaves you unsatisfied, the case can move on to a statutory body or the courts under Indian law.
4. See whether another law applies
For most trips between the US and India, the Passenger Charter is the only rulebook in play. But a journey that begins in the EU or the UK, or ends there on a European carrier, can fall under EC 261 or UK 261 instead, and those rules pay far more, up to $650 per person. The deciding factor is where your ticket starts and finishes, not where you happen to change planes, so a European stopover on a US-India trip doesn't bring it in. AirHelp doesn't handle India Charter claims, but it does handle EC 261 and UK 261, and it can tell you for free which rules cover your itinerary.
