Airline complaints take off after ash cloud
19.10.10
Air passenger watchdog the Air Transport Users Council (AUC) received three times as many complaints than last year in the wake of the volcanic ash cloud. James Fremantle, the council’s industry affairs manager, said at the end of August, AUC had received complaints from more than 3000 British passengers who had not yet received their compensation or believe that they were paid less than they were entitled to.
The AUC is expecting the number to be considerably larger when details of the next count are released in the middle of next month, and say the figure could just be the tip of the iceberg with many consumers simply not bothering to make a complaint.
Mr Fremantle said: ‘In an ideal world we would want all complaints dealt with efficiently and not coming through to us. The fact that complaints are still coming through to us six months after the event is not pleasing either. Having said that, it was an unprecedented event and some sympathy has to go to airlines, but this is still six months on.’
Although EU regulations state that airlines should look after stranded passengers', some told passengers to make their own arrangements, promising to compensate them later. But then Air France-KLM only paid for a single night’s accommodation despite the length of time customers were stranded, while Monarch capped the daily rate for each affected passenger with those stuck in Spain receiving just £20 a day while passengers caught in Egypt have been reimbursed to the tune of £40 a day.
Some airlines have also refused to refund passengers who made their own way home, claiming that these expenses were not explicitly covered by the EU regulation. Virgin Atlantic and British Airways received the fewest number of complaints compared to the number of passengers affected. The AUC is threatening to name airlines about which it has received the most complaints next month.
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