An Uttarakhand consumer commission has directed an online travel booking platform to pay Rs 62,800 to a consumer after finding it deficient in service for failing to inform him that flights on his booked route from Zanzibar to Johannesburg had been suspended for months. The consumer discovered the disruption only on reaching the airport, forcing him to book replacement tickets at a higher cost for his honeymoon trip to South Africa.

A bench of president Gagan Kumar Gupta and members Ranjana Goyal and Amresh Rawat of the Haridwar District Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission noted that the online travel booking platform cannot escape liability as an intermediary platform, saying it acted only as a facilitator between the complainant and the airline.

“The opposite party (online platform) had enough time to inform the complainant about the closed air route, as the flight operations on the said air route were closed for three to four months, but they did not inform.…