Some of the thousands of people whose flights were canceled or delayed during the chaos of medium-term travel have been told that they will not receive any compensation, which led to a change in the way to reimburse passengers ahead of what appears to be a chaotic summer for people. airlines.
Others have talked about the loss of claims and having to resubmit forms up to seven times, while passengers affected by a previous outage said they had waited months for airlines to talk to them.
Consumer advocates are calling for regulators to be given powers to fine airlines if they breach the compensation rules, for fear of being repeated when summer school holidays begin next month. Flight bookings scheduled for July already exceed 2019 levels.
In early June it was the first time many people took a holiday abroad since the pandemic began, with some 2 million people traveling abroad. But staff shortages meant airlines and tour operators struggled to meet demand.
Tui canceled more than 180 flights, blaming “operational and supply chain problems”; British Airways canceled 124 with a notice of several weeks and Wizz Air also canceled flights. EasyJet has canceled more than 280 flights since May 28 and said it had told customers they could book back, get a refund or “request compensation in accordance with regulations”.
But some easyJet passengers said they had been denied compensation. Ben Brabyn and his wife and two children were due to fly in the early afternoon of May 27 from Gatwick to Pisa in Italy for a family reunion that had originally been planned before the pandemic. After hours of delays, the flight was canceled because it would not reach Pisa before the night curfew. EasyJet offered a change of booking for a flight a few days later, after the meeting ended, so the Brabyn found a flight to Naples.
It meant spending money on parking in Gatwick, car hire in Pisa and accommodation, with additional costs for last minute plane tickets and car hire, which left Brabyn about £ 1,500 from the his pocket.
He assumed he would receive a refund and compensation of £ 880, £ 220 per person. But last week he received an email saying he was not “eligible.”
“I have not received any refund or compensation,” Brabyn said. “There’s no way to challenge it. They gave no reason. I used to have a little sympathy: it’s a difficult thing to manage. But not now.”
Other easyJet passengers said on social media that they had also been denied compensation.
An easyJet spokesman apologized and said: “Although, of course, we will reimburse the family in full for their alternative flight and other expenses incurred, as this flight was canceled due to events outside the our control, in accordance with the regulations, no compensation should be paid for this reason. ”
John Turville and Laurie O’Brien, on the honeymoon that British Airways almost ruined by canceling their flight to Buenos Aires. Photography: Brochure
Tui passengers said on social media that they had been denied compensation because the airline’s website said they were not on the list, although some posted pictures of the boarding passes online. . Others said they had tried seven times to file a claim.
Tui apologized to customers and said that a technical error in their flight manifest system had caused the issues that have now been fixed. Only a small number of passengers were affected, he said.
Some passengers have waited longer just to receive a response. Laurie O’Brien and her husband John Turville were scheduled to fly to Buenos Aires on their honeymoon on April 3 with British Airways, but their flight was canceled when they were at Heathrow. They suffered a 13-hour delay on a replacement trip offered by BA.
Two months later, they only received a generic email, O’Brien said. She believes they should receive £ 520 each for cancellation and delay: “It is unacceptable that we have not received any apology or communication. They seem to be expecting people to forget their claims.”
BA said it regretted the delay in responding to the couple and would contact them soon.
Lisa Webb, an expert in consumer law at Which ?, said: “We’ve seen many examples of carriers not reporting passengers [their] rights and take weeks to respond to claims, only to invite them to re-apply due to technical errors. Consumers should not be made to jump between hoops to get the refunds and compensations that are legally due to them.
“To prevent further abuses of passenger rights as the summer holiday season approaches, regulators must have significant powers to hold carriers accountable for violating the rules, starting with direct fines for Civil Aviation Authority “.
Resolver, which helps customers file complaints, said 2,949 people had already complained in June about canceled flights: last summer’s monthly average was less than 1,000. Martyn James of Resolver said it was “an extraordinary number” and had been inundated with inquiries.
“If a flight is canceled, compensation is applied, so no one should be told that they do not meet the requirements unless there is a specific reason to exclude a claim: the fault must be that of the airline or predictable for it. So the strike action is underway, the storm action is out. The air traffic control strike is over, there is a shortage of staff. “
Passengers on most UK airlines can refer the matter to one of the CAA’s mediators, known as Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR).
This month was the first time many people traveled abroad since Covid restrictions were lifted. Photo: Tolga Akmen / EPA
In 2019, airlines and airports paid £ 12.9 million in compensation to exactly 18,000 of the 27,188 people who used ADR, according to quarterly CAA figures compiled by the Observer.
Complaints dropped during the pandemic when fewer people wanted to, and in 2021 the number of successful claims also declined significantly, with 2,550 claimants receiving a £ 1.7 million share of the 9,627 claims. The CAA does not publish the number of complaints resolved or rejected by airlines and airports prior to the ADR.
Grant Shapps, the transportation secretary, has proposed changing the rules to a system similar to the train delay compensation scheme, which some analysts say would mean lower compensation payments for passengers, but that would only apply to domestic flights. of the United Kingdom.
Airports have calmed down since the middle of the period, but there are likely to be more queues in July, with possible strike actions by pilots in Scandinavia and airport staff in France. In the UK, airlines and airports are struggling to replace 30,000 workers laid off during the pandemic. Shapps blamed industry for poor planning, but industry leaders say recruits are taking up other jobs due to three-month delays in obtaining security clearance for new staff from the airport.
ForwardKeys, which tracks tickets issued for scheduled flights, said July bookings were already at 102% of 2019 levels and 93% by August. Olivier Ponti, vice president of Insights, said: “The best performing destination right now is Turkey, where bookings are 116% ahead of the 2019 equivalent of the year. India, 31% ahead. ”
Abta, the travel industry agency, said 58% of people had booked a holiday over the next 12 months, up 44% from October last year.