One way refund of round trip flight due to flight cancellation

Question

Recently I traveled with KingFisher Airlines in India. The flight was a round trip domestic flight and cost 811 USD. I made it on the way there, but on the way back due to financial problems, Kingfisher flights all over the country got canceled (actually I think it is still canceled) and I had to take a bus and buy another flight instead in order to return back.

Now, when contacting KingFisher, they have told me I would get a refund of 350 USD for the way back that got canceled.

I don't understand their calculation, and it sounds like it is not enough for all the trouble that I went through - Having to endure a 12-hour bus ride from hell and buy a flight in the last minute from a different airport for a high price.

My questions are:

1. Does the amount sound right to you? Is there a standard way of calculating the refund?
2. Is there anything I can do about it? Reasoning with them is not possible?

EDIT

This is an old question, but I haven't heard back from Kingfisher and never got any refund from them. I guess in retrospective, I was naive to think I would :-)

Answer 1

Kingfisher Airlines' cancellation policy states this:

Financial Compensation

1. INR 2,000/‐ or the value of the ticket whichever is less for flights having a block time of up to and including one hour.
2. INR 3,000/‐ or the value of the ticket whichever is less for flights having a block time of more than one hour and up to and including two hours.
3. INR 4,000/‐ or the value of the ticket whichever is less for flights having a block time of more than two hours.
4. If the cost of the ticket is less than the amount of compensation indicated above, the airline will be liable to compensate an amount equivalent to the ticket cost in addition to refund of air ticket.

Additionally, in you case:

Refund of air ticket at the price it was purchased.

So you've already received the 'refund' part. What you haven't got is the additional compensation under the 'financial compensation' part of their policy. I don't know how long your flight was, so I'm not sure which of those four you qualify for. At current exchange rates, that works out to $35-75.

Kingfisher states that the compensation will be provided in the form of cash or vouchers. Given that the airline is essentially bankrupt and hasn't been able to pay employees or its own operation for months, it's unlikely that any financial compensation requests will be processed promptly. The question you need to ask yourself is that since you've already been refunded $350, whether getting that extra $35-75 is worth your time.

(Of course, if you had travel insurance, then you can claim compensation for the cancelled flight directly from your travel insurance company.)

Answer 2

I'm not totally sure your question is on topic, also because you're asking for an opinion in the first part of your question.

Still, the short answer to your question is that you'll probably have to deal with it. You can harass their customer service, blog, tweet and facebook about it, which could make a difference, but considering this is an airline with financial problems, you're probably not going to get very far.