Despite its revenue hit badly, the national air passenger carrier Air India has commenced to refund cash of about Rs 250 crore of Covid-19 linked to passengers.

The refund process started from the beginning of July, during the second wave of the pandemic due to travel restrictions in the domestic sector and also certain international destinations imposing restrictions on flights to and from India.

Air India opening automated refunds in India and abroad and has cleared about Rs 130 crore of refunds in the previous month.

The development comes at a time when the government is trying to privatise Air India and even as other carriers such as IndiGo have cleared the refunds process for customers who were impacted by the Covid-19 lockdowns and restrictions since last year.

A week ago, MakeMyTrip issued a note to customers stating that it had disbursed over Rs 642 crore in refunds since last year and that almost 99.6% of its impacted bookings during the lockdown period stood resolved.

IndiGo announced in March this year that it has processed 99.5% of refunds due to passengers for flight cancellations during the lockdown.

Last year, the Supreme Court had said airlines will have to give full refunds to passengers who had to cancel air tickets between March 25 and May 24. This was applicable to both domestic flights and international ones out of India on either Indian or foreign carriers.

The court had also passed directions around the credit shell formation process for cancellations and bookings.