The Courier Lost Your Package. The Airline Lost Your Bag. What Can You Actually Claim?

Airlines: know the ceiling before you argue

• Domestic flights are governed by the DGCA's Civil Aviation Requirements, with a cap in the region of ₹20,000 for lost or damaged checked baggage, and the Carriage by Air Act 1972 caps liability at roughly ₹450 per kilogram of checked baggage. For a 15 kg bag that is about ₹6,750, whatever was inside it.
• International flights run under the Montreal Convention 1999, applied in India through the same Act, with a far higher ceiling — of the order of 1,519 Special Drawing Rights, roughly ₹1.7 lakh, after the December 2024 revision.
• Delays and cancellations are a different regime again. India has no European-style automatic payment for a delay, but the Passenger Charter requires meals, refreshments and, for qualifying overnight delays, hotel accommodation. Denied boarding and short-notice cancellation do carry defined compensation.

Knowing the ceiling matters because it tells you when to stop. If the cap is ₹20,000 and you are offered ₹18,000, the fight is not worth your month.

Couriers: their terms are not the last word

Courier companies print a liability cap on the consignment note, often a few hundred rupees regardless of what was inside. That clause is not automatically the end of the matter. A standard-form term that a consumer had no opportunity to negotiate can be examined as an unfair contract, and consumer commissions have repeatedly awarded more than the printed cap where the loss was proved and the term was one-sided.

What decides it is proof of value: the invoice for the contents, the declared value on the docket, the tracking history showing where it stopped, and the company's own correspondence.

The order to work in

• File the company's own claim, within whatever window its terms state, and keep the reference.
• Escalate to the grievance officer, which Indian rules require most such companies to publish. This is not the chat agent, and that is the point.
• Use the sector channel where one exists — for aviation, the airline's nodal officer and then the government's air-passenger grievance route.
• Send a written notice stating the consignment or PNR, the proven value, and the demand.
• File a consumer complaint, free below five lakh rupees, online, no lawyer needed. Two years from the cause of action.

Two mistakes that end otherwise good claims

• Accepting a settlement described as full and final. A ₹700 voucher accepted in writing can close a ₹4,000 claim. If you accept something as a part payment, say so in writing.
• Having no proof of what was inside. Declare value when you ship anything that matters, and keep the invoice. Without it you are arguing about your own word.

Key takeaways

• File the airline Property Irregularity Report before leaving the arrival hall.
• Domestic baggage is capped near ₹20,000, and about ₹450 per kg. International is far higher.
• A courier's printed liability cap can be challenged as an unfair one-sided term.
• Proof of value is the whole case. Declare it when shipping, keep the invoice.
• Grievance officer, then notice, then the consumer commission. Free below ₹5 lakh.
• Never accept a voucher as full and final unless you mean it.