Major airlines companies in China have launched a new consumer-friendly policy regarding air ticket returns.
According to Ctrip.com, the eight Chinese airlines of Air China, China Eastern, China Southern, Shanghai Airlines, Hainan Airlines, Shandong Airlines, Grand China Airlines and Jixiang Airlines have each worked out their own new air ticket return policy.
Under the new policy, most of the airline companies including Air China, China Southern, Shandong Airlines and Shanghai Airlines, do not charge a fee for returning first class or business class ticket.
Among them, Air China charges a ticket-returning fee in proportion to the discount of the airfare: the higher the discount, the higher the ticket return fee. China Eastern says in its new policy that the fee for returning an air ticket must not be less than RMB50. Like Air China, China Southern also charges a fee in proportion to discount rate of the airfare: it charges 10% of the face value of the airfare that is sold with 15-20% off, 20% of the face value of the airfare that is sold with 30-45% off, 50% of the face value of the airfare that is sold with 50-60% off. Other airline companies like Shanghai Airlines and Shandong Airlines also adopt a policy similar to that of Air China.
Before this, most of the Chinese domestic airlines charged air ticket returning fees according to the time that ticket was returned. 5% of the airfare was charged if the ticket was returned 24 hours in advanced to the plane departing, 10% was charged to ticket returning that was done 2-24 hours in advance of the departing, 20% was charged for ticket that was returned 2 hours before the plane takes off, and 50% was charged after the plane took off.
