Originally Posted by Keyser

in a perfect world, you are right....the fee should be refunded since its not your fault that the flight is not operating....

however, to play devil's advocate, if i was representing the airline then i would argue that it is not the airlines fault as well....if the government was still permitting flights & the airline cancelled despite that then even the 'processing fee' would be refundable....but this is not the case here so therefore they are refunding the entire ticket amount without a penalty but retaining the 'processing fee' which is what they claim is the charge for their services of processing the payment & then refunding the payment....

its a defense with a number of holes in it but a defense nevertheless....