Travel question: If Jet is set to collapse, what are our rights to a refund?

Q My husband, my daughter and I are to travel to India from Heathrow via Jet Airways in July 2019. We’ve purchased our tickets from a travel agent. The airline appears to be in serious trouble. My agent is not able to give me any advice other than saying to us that we call the airline ourselves direct. We have been advised by our credit card company to wait till June. But are we entitled to a full refund? What are my rights in this situation? Please help.

Amy H

A The vast majority of Jet Airways’ aircraft have been handed back to the leasing companies. The Heathrow slots have been transferred to other airlines. While the airline is claiming that it will soon restart flights, it has not responded to my question about the timings for Heathrow flights tomorrow. The Indian airline has not paid its staff for weeks, and talks aimed at finding a rescue do not appear to have secured the tens of millions of pounds necessary to stave off collapse.

Yet as of yesterday afternoon Jet Airways is still technically a going concern, which means that at present you can only wait and see what happens. It is still theoretically possible that the airline could be rescued and that your flight will go ahead as normal. It looks to me, though, that this heavily indebted carrier is extremely unlikely to be flying from Heathrow to either Delhi or Mumbai in July.

Your contract is with the agent, not the airline, so to be told to contact Jet Airways is ridiculous (and, from what I have heard from the airline’s passengers with imminent flights, nigh-impossible). If the airline’s demise is confirmed, then the agent should give you the choice between an immediate full refund or a booking on another airline, possibly at a higher fare. Should this not happen, you need to get on to your credit card company for action.

The status of bookings made through travel agents in respect of the Consumer Credit Act is a little cloudy. While sales direct from the airline are covered by Section 75 (basically guaranteeing a refund because the card provider is jointly liable for the provision of a service), when the payment goes to a firm not directly responsible for the service it may not be covered. But the “chargeback” arrangement, which has much the same effect, should apply. If the agent has any sense, it will offer a refund or alternative flights before you have to get legalistic.

Jet Airways in its later days tended to undercut the market, so you can expect replacement flights to be more expensive – with summer price-spikes likely due to the reduction in the supply of seats. A particular premium will apply on nonstop services from Heathrow to Delhi and Mumbai, the two routes served by Jet Airways. Fortunately, there are plenty of indirect services available, via anywhere from Kiev to Rome and with myriad of choices through the Gulf.

Every day our travel correspondent Simon Calder tackles a reader’s question. Just email yours to s@hols.tv or tweet @simoncalder