With schools rescheduling their Diwali and Christmas vacations to make up for the loss of studies due to the two-week long break for swine flu, holiday plans of a large number of families have gone awry.

And this in turn has brought bad news for city-based travel and ticketing companies. The campanies have got huge number of requests for cancellation of train and air tickets.

In last one week, 20 bookings were cancelled at Skyline Tours and Travels out of which eight were air tickets, booked for international travel. “From the time the flu scare started, we had been receiving inquiries on cancellations. But from the last week, customers have been coming in with confirmed cancellation requests,” said proprietor Urmila Jamadagni. She added that the main chunk of those cancelling bookings comprise families with school-going children. “Otherwise, the business hasn’t been affected much,” said Jamadagni.

However, Vinay Pandey of Speed International who is into airline and railway ticketing booking for a decade feels that the travel industry has been hit badly owing to cancellations of tickets. From the time few schools declared the change in the vacation dates, he has been receiving about 15 airlines and as many as 30 railway ticket cancellation requests every day.

But there may be many more to come as many parents have yet not decided. Garima Singh, mother of Arya Singh, a UKG student of St Mary’s School, had booked tickets for the US to join her husband who works there. Though she had taken special permission from the school for a three-month leave that included the Diwali and Christmas vacations, she is now unsure whether the permission still holds. “Her school has still not re-opened and since the kids have already lost on so much of studies, I fear they might cancel my approval. Till the school reopens, I won’t have a clear idea,” said Singh.

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