© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: A screen showing canceled flights is seen at Los Angeles International Airport as more than 1,400 US flights were canceled over the weekend due to staff shortages and unfavorable weather in Los Angeles, California, United States, or
Written by Joanna Plosinska and Alison Lambert
LONDON/MONTREAL (Reuters) – Nikolita Dudova is among a growing number of dissatisfied airline customers. After her mother and niece bought plane tickets from Sweden to Macedonia last year, their flight was canceled and they ended up at an airport more than two hours away. Still waiting for compensation.
Official data from regulators shows complaints against airlines have reached or near record levels in countries like Canada and Germany over the past year since COVID-19 restrictions were lifted and travel resumed.
Rising numbers of disagreements between travelers and airlines around the world are prompting new legislation and calls for stricter enforcement of existing rules to protect consumers.
“If (the airlines) don’t pay, they don’t follow the law,” Dudova said. “They need to be responsible.”
Tighter rules on payments could put more pressure on airfares from rising energy, labor and other costs.
Lufthansa payments alone rose to 331 million euros in 2022, from 25 million euros in 2021, German Airlines Group told Reuters in previously undisclosed numbers.
Legislation is under review in Canada, while the US government writes new rules and the European Union pushes for stronger enforcement of its existing system.
The pressure to act is mounting as summer travel is expected to break records in some regions this year after long lines at airports and piles of baggage backed up last summer.
Airlines fear a mix of conflicting rules and want those in charge of services to get out of control in the industry to help defray the costs of compensation.
European airline group Airlines for Europe (A4E) said compensation is becoming increasingly onerous and the current rules leave a lot to explain. She calls for reform of the legislation.
While higher fares have helped airlines offset a variety of increased costs, aviation analyst James Halstead said, “It is in the airline’s best interest to keep passengers happy even in the event of disruptions.”
Lufthansa said in a statement that it has no backlog of customer claims and refunds are generally paid within the statutory seven days that apply to airlines operating in Europe.
The global aviation body, IATA, has called on governments to help avoid piecemeal regulations and improve services, “instead of individualizing airlines, as recent proposals have done in Canada and the United States,” said Director-General Willie Walsh.
Transportation Minister Omar Al-Ghabra told Reuters that Canada is promoting shared accountability by providing new access to performance data that airlines can use when negotiating service agreements with airports.
Some consumer advocates agree with Dodova that the rules are not being applied properly.
“The law is not a problem,” said John Oberlin Harris, a British Airways passenger still waiting for a refund nearly a year after a flight delay that knocked out connections with India’s Hyderabad airport, forcing him to fly back to England.
BA said it works very hard to resolve issues in a timely manner when claims are raised. UK law sets when compensation is due depending on whether any delay was the fault of the airline.
Sweden’s National Consumer Disputes Authority decided in March that Dudova owed €800 in compensation from Hungarian airline Wizz Air. The airline said it has been in touch and is doing more to improve customer service.
Register complaints
Traveler complaints are hampering courts and regulators in Germany, Britain, Canada and the United States
In Germany, the Federal Ministry of Justice’s arbitration panel, which mediates between consumers and airlines, said it was handling 46% more complaints than in 2019, before the pandemic hit.
German courts reported an increase of about 40% to more than 70,000 cases involving passenger complaints last year.
One industry official said that airlines in Europe are losing a greater proportion of those battles.
In Britain, rulings by county courts against airlines have accumulated more than 4.5 million pounds ($5.68 million), according to consumer watchdog Which? Citing an official record of sentences in March.
In the US, the Department of Transportation (DOT) has seen passenger complaints from airlines rise by 55% in 2022.
The United States is writing rules that will be proposed by the end of the year requiring airlines to compensate passengers for long delays or cancellations in their control.
After two consecutive quarters of travel chaos, US airlines are doing everything they can to prevent large-scale flight disruptions this summer in the face of surging demand.
North of the border, the Transport Canada Agency, a quasi-judicial court responsible for enforcing existing passenger recovery requirements, has a record number of 47,000 complaints. It’s so high, Canada wants to charge airlines if they pass unresolved complaints to the agency.
In Europe, intermediaries such as AirHelp, which help consumers obtain refunds or compensation, have flourished. AirHelp CEO Thomas Paulizin said active claims were about three times higher in 2022 than in 2019, and that number could rise with strikes expected this summer.
sharing costs
Airlines declined to foot the bill for cases that were not their fault.
The European Union has long angered airlines with its sweeping consumer protection legislation, which offers payments of up to €600 for delays of three hours or more, or cancellations.
“As a traveler, all you know is the airline canceled my flight,” said Geoff Morrison, president of the National Air Canada Council, which represents Air Canada among others.
Morrison said the cost of air travel in Canada could rise due to new fees and compensation requirements.
($1 = 1.3372 Canadian dollars)
($1 = 0.7923 pounds)
