FARE DUES Ryanair reveals ten day compensation scheme after axed flights caused travel chaos last year
Thousands of passengers were hit in the pocket when the airline cancelled hundreds of flights in Scotland
THOUSANDS of passengers were hit in the pocket when Ryanair axed hundreds of flights in Scotland last year.
Now chiefs have vowed to settle compensation claims within ten days and look at bringing in automatic payments.
But Alex Neill, of consumer mag Which?, warns the proof will be in the budget airline’s actions.
RYANAIR has launched its latest “Always Getting Better” campaign and pledged to look at automatic compensation for fliers hit by delays and cancellations.
The airline is now into its fourth year of the drive — which may surprise its customers.
So forgive me for being a little sceptical about whether a vow to look at something is anything more than
PR puff.
To people dealing with the budget carrier recently, it has felt more like things are “Always Getting Worse”.
Take last year. Ryanair launched its 2017 AGB customer service plan with an equally promising sounding set of plans.
There was also an assurance passengers would have the “best choice of destinations with the most on-time flights and a fantastic on-board experience, as we grow our fleet, traffic and routes”.
No doubt some of those pledges were fulfilled.
But for hundreds of thousands of people, 2017 was about axed flights and appalling customer service as chief
Michael O’Leary slashed routes to deal with a pilot shortage.
It included all trips from Glasgow and Edinburgh to London.
For many this was much more than a missed business trip or city break.
In some cases it meant the heartache of plans to spend Christmas with loved ones abandoned, or the stress of trying to find a way to fly an entire wedding party thousands of miles at the last minute.
A lot of people were left hundreds of pounds out of pocket as they scrambled to make alternative travel arrangements.
To make matters worse, Ryanair initially responded by playing fast and loose with people’s rights.
It failed to share proper advice and made it difficult to arrange alternative flights or claim compensation.
Ryanair’s behaviour during the fiasco prompted the Civil Aviation Authority to take enforcement action against the firm for “persistently misleading” customers.
So when Ryanair makes grand promises to its passengers, it would be wise to wait to see some action to go with the carefully crafted words.
We’ll be keeping a close eye on the promise of a dedicated team processing valid compensation claims within ten days.
And if the airline does go further and brings in automatic compensation, it will be a market leading move, which we’ll applaud — while urging the rest of the industry to follow suit.
The case for doing so is clear. According to Which? analysis of CAA data, more than 1,200 flights to or from Edinburgh, Glasgow and Aberdeen were delayed by at least three hours in 2016-17.
That means thousands of Scots were entitled to claim between £220 and £530, depending on the length of the delay.
But how many of us can take the time and effort to fill out complicated forms then wait weeks to find out if we’ll get what we’re owed?
Not enough — or at least that’s the calculation the airlines make.
That’s why we’re calling on all airlines to bring in automatic compensation for passengers — taking the hassle out of claiming what they’re entitled to.
Perhaps then long-suffering customers of Ryanair and all airlines will finally feel like things really are “Always Getting Better”.
The airline insisted that “Always Getting Better” has delivered a string of improvements in the past four years.
And Ryanair’s Kenny Jacobs said the firm run by Micheal O’Leary will deliver more “real” changes in 2018.