The State Duma is considering canceling non-refundable air tickets

The lower house of the Russian parliament has proposed a complete ban on the sale of non-refundable airline tickets. This initiative was put forward by State Duma deputy Mikhail Matveyev. He sent a letter with his proposal to Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin. According to the parliamentarian, the implementation of his initiative will increase the availability of airline tickets during the holiday season. MK found out from experts what this proposal could lead to.

According to the author of the initiative, with the onset of the holiday season, the issue of air ticket availability becomes acute. This causes a stream of citizens' appeals to deputies. Moreover, the problem is not only the high cost of air travel, but also the actual availability of tickets for sale, especially on popular routes. Non-refundable fares, despite the seeming justification for their introduction - a lower price and the ability to independently choose a convenient travel option - lead to a number of negative consequences. If a tourist is forced to cancel a flight for various reasons, he does not notify the airline and does not return the purchased ticket. As a result, the seat remains unoccupied. Others wishing to fly on this flight can no longer purchase a ticket. As a result, each passenger plane has several empty seats that no one can use.

"The solution to this situation in the interests of citizens would be to ban non-refundable tickets in principle, so that having the opportunity to receive at least a small amount for the returned ticket, 300, 500, 1000 rubles, the passenger would return it, and thus other citizens could take advantage of the opportunity to purchase this ticket," Matveyev emphasized in his address to the Prime Minister. For airlines, the ban on non-refundable tickets could also be beneficial, the deputy added. If air carriers can sell the same seat again, this will increase the companies' income during the high season. The parliamentarian asked the head of government to consider his initiative taking into account the proposed arguments and inform about the results.

However, industry experts interviewed by MK were extremely wary of this proposal. “When statements are made about the benefits of this or that step in the sphere of passenger transportation, it would be good if the deputies supported their hypotheses or assumptions with statistics,” says the editor of the avia.ru portal, aviation expert Roman Gusarov. “How many non-refundable tickets are there in reality? How many of these free tickets did not go on sale? They do not have such information. However, according to the statistics that airlines have, the percentage of people who did not use their non-refundable ticket and did not fly is insignificant and will not make a difference to anyone. The overwhelming majority of people fly away having bought non-refundable tickets: these seats are not empty.”

Moreover, the point of introducing non-refundable tickets was economically justified. Airlines, selling tickets to passengers, understand that by law they can be returned to them, and at the last moment. And then - if such a return takes place - the seat on the plane will really be empty, and the ticket will not be sold: as a result, the air carrier will not make a profit. At the same time, someone will not find a ticket for this flight precisely because it was returned at the last moment and it was technically impossible to return it to circulation again. People often return a ticket literally on the eve of departure, because something urgent happened and plans had to be changed. Airlines include the risks of these returns in their business model. They understand that a certain percentage of seats will be empty, and the money for them will not be received at all. That is, air carriers, determining the cost of each seat, include the risks of returns in them. The point of non-refundable tickets is precisely that airlines, selling tickets even at the lowest fare, and sometimes literally at cost, know for sure that they will receive money for them. This is what allows Russians to have more choice, and carriers to sell the cheapest tickets and not include the risk of refunds in their cost.

In other words, the availability of non-refundable tickets actually makes it possible to make flights cheaper for consumers. If the industry now abandons this mechanism, then Russians will only lose, because then all tickets will become more expensive, since the risks of refunds will be distributed among all passengers. If it is important for a tourist to have a refundable ticket, then he now has a choice: he can pay a little more and buy exactly this kind of ticket. And this approach is correct, and not to establish a monopoly on only one category of tickets, which will immediately increase their cost, Gusarov emphasized.

According to Dmitry Gorin, Vice President of the Russian Union of Travel Industry (RUTI), non-refundable tickets are in high demand among passengers. Their availability on sale gives any tourist the right to choose the tariff that suits him best. Moreover, there are also tariffs for tickets "with luggage" or without, which also helps people save on travel. Due to inflation, rising fuel prices, and increased staff salaries, airfare prices in Russia have increased by 10% to 22%, and they are even higher during the peak holiday season. If this initiative is supported and all tickets become refundable, this will lead to a significant increase in their already high cost, which could harm passengers and hit their pockets hard. "If we talk about the fact that some seats on planes remain empty, this is not only because someone bought a non-refundable ticket and did not fly," the expert emphasized. — There is an average flight load factor, and according to it, on the vast majority of flights, some number of seats remain empty, that is, tickets for them are simply not purchased. Another issue is that the last seats on a specific flight, taking into account dynamic pricing, can cost significantly more than when sales for it opened. Let me remind you that Russians have the opportunity to buy a ticket 11 months before departure, and at this time, as a rule, prices are the lowest. But the closer to the departure date, the more expensive the ticket for a specific flight. So those who want to save on tickets should buy them in advance."

The main thing that a non-refundable ticket gives to the buyer is the right to choose and the opportunity to independently weigh the risks. It is in the interests of the consumer to have as many opportunities as possible to decide when to buy tickets, at what rate, whether to save on this or not. If all tickets are refundable, then the consumer will lose: not only will he be deprived of choice, but he will also have to pay more for the available flight options, Gorin emphasized.