Recovery · Airline
Every carrier.Every fare basis.
The firm's most mature recovery line. End-to-end on every domestic and international airline ticket your programme touches, full-service or low-cost, refund or reissue, IATA-settled or direct. The work has been built around the heterogeneity, not against it.
200+
Carriers in coverage
All fares
Y / J / F / corporate / promotional
End-to-end
Booking to posted ITC
The carrier surface, honestly mapped
Five carrier types. Five different recovery shapes.
Airline invoices don't share a format. A full-service carrier's tax invoice, an LCC's web-portal receipt, an international carrier's IATA-settled bill, a regional charter's PDF, each comes with its own structure, its own GST treatment, and its own failure modes. The firm's airline practice is calibrated to each.
Carrier type
Invoice format
GST surface
Cancel / reissue
Settlement
Indian full-service
Domestic legacy carriers
Full
Structured PDF tax invoice with consistent line items, GSTIN, and HSN.
Full
CGST + SGST or IGST on YQ + YR carrier-imposed surcharges. Recoverable in full.
Full
Refund credits and reissue mechanics handled with carrier-specific rules.
Full
Carrier portal direct.
Indian LCC
Low-cost / no-frills
Full
Web-portal receipt or short tax invoice. Format varies. SkyDoc normalises.
Full
CGST + SGST or IGST on fare + ancillaries (seat, baggage). All ancillaries claimed.
Full
LCC cancellation logic captured. Reissue rare; refund-credit common.
Full
Carrier portal direct.
Tier-1 international
Foreign carriers, Indian operations
Full
IATA-formatted invoice. Foreign carrier with India GSTIN where required.
Full
IGST on India-leg fares for B2B bookings. Place-of-supply handled.
Handled
Reissue across stations and across carriers; complex but bounded.
Handled
Carrier portal where exposed; IATA BSP fallback otherwise.
Regional
Domestic and SE Asia, smaller carriers
Handled
Invoice formats vary widely. SkyDoc handles the standard set; outliers reviewed.
Full
Standard CGST/SGST/IGST. The carrier set is small enough to keep manual eyes on.
Handled
Refund mechanics often manual; the firm tracks claim-by-claim.
Handled
Mixed direct + agent settlement; engagement-specific routing.
Charter
Ad-hoc and group charter
Handled
Charter invoices are bespoke. Each engagement reviewed by tax desk.
Handled
GST treatment depends on operator status and route. Position taken case-by-case.
Handled
Cancellation rare; pricing pre-agreed. Recovery clean once invoice received.
Handled
Direct from operator.
Where airline ITC actually leaks
Six junctures. Six places to keep or lose the credit.
From booking to posted credit, an airline claim passes through six stages where it can be kept or lost. Most engagements show leakage at four of the six. The firm's intervention is at each stage; the table reads from left to right.
Stage 01
Booking
Kept
Booking tagged with the correct buying entity GSTIN at the source.
Lost
Default entity used; invoice raised against the wrong GSTIN.
Stage 02
Invoicing
Kept
SkyDoc captures the carrier invoice and normalises the line items.
Lost
Invoice sits in a finance email inbox, unclassified, uncaptured.
Stage 03
Cancellation
Kept
Refund credit and reissue mechanics tracked claim-by-claim.
Lost
Cancellation credit applied silently against a future ticket and untraceable.
Stage 04
Reconciliation
Kept
SkyLedger matches the invoice against GSTR-2B; gap classified.
Lost
Mismatch never surfaced; credit sits unmatched indefinitely.
Stage 05
Sign-off
Kept
Tax desk writes a position; opinion attached to the claim.
Lost
Disputed position avoided; claim quietly dropped.
Stage 06
Filing window
Kept
Filed before T+180. Posted to the ERP via AlignIQ.
Lost
Window closed under section 16(4). Credit unrecoverable forever.
Most enterprises lose credit at four of the six stages. The firm's job is to hold the credit at every stage, every time, including the ones the client never sees.
Six checkpoints, one practice
Where generalists send the work sideways
Four edge cases the firm does not send back.
Some airline GST recovery work is messy, carrier-specific rules, ambiguous positions, fact-heavy disputes. Generalist tax practices route this work back to the client as "review case by case." The firm's airline desk holds it. Four representative examples.
Edge 01 · Cancellation credit reissue
When a cancelled ticket becomes a future ticket.
Scenario
Client cancels a Y-class booking. Carrier issues a credit shell, not a refund. Three months later, an employee uses the shell against a different route.
Pattern
The original invoice's GST sits as a recoverable credit on the cancelled PNR. The new ticket's invoice references the shell, not new cash. Most enterprises double-claim or under-claim.
Position
SkyLedger traces the shell across both PNRs; tax desk takes a written position on the GST split between the cancelled and reissued legs.
Outcome
Both legs of GST claimed correctly. No double-claim, no under-claim. Position defensible at scrutiny.
Edge 02 · Wrong-entity invoicing
When the carrier invoices the parent, not the buying entity.
Scenario
Multi-entity group books through a single corporate account. Carrier defaults to invoicing the parent. Buying entity is a separate GSTIN in another state.
Pattern
Invoice raised against parent GSTIN; buying entity cannot claim ITC. Aggregate leakage scales with the number of entities in the group.
Position
TripConnect's entity matching catches the booking pre-invoice; where the invoice has already been raised, the firm pursues a credit note and re-invoicing with the carrier.
Outcome
Either prevented at booking (TripConnect on) or recovered through carrier re-invoicing process (typically 30-60 days).
Edge 03 · YQ/YR surcharge GST
When carrier surcharges carry GST that finance doesn't claim.
Scenario
Ticket has GST on base fare + GST on carrier-imposed YQ/YR surcharges. Finance team's reconciliation only flags GST on base fare.
Pattern
Carrier surcharge GST is structurally recoverable but routinely missed. Across high-volume programmes, the surcharge GST alone is a material recovery line.
Position
SkyDoc extracts surcharge GST as a separate line item; SkyLedger reconciles both base and surcharge against GSTR-2B independently.
Outcome
Surcharge GST recovered in addition to base-fare GST. Typical recovery uplift on a programme.
Edge 04 · International-leg POS
When a Tier-1 international fare has Indian-leg ITC.
Scenario
Employee flies BLR-DXB-LHR on a Tier-1 international carrier. Fare combines an Indian-leg sector and an international onward sector. GST applies to the Indian leg.
Pattern
Carrier invoice often shows total fare without Indian-leg split. Generalist firms claim the full fare or nothing at all. Both are wrong.
Position
Tax desk takes a position on the Indian-leg GST portion using the carrier's fare-construction logic; written opinion attached to the claim.
Outcome
Indian-leg GST recovered cleanly. International-leg correctly excluded. Position holds at scrutiny because the construction is on the record.
Start with the diagnostic
See your airline leakage before you decide what to do.
The diagnostic surfaces twelve months of airline GST leakage across every carrier your programme uses, in writing, no engagement letter.