Ryanair in financial difficulty?
 

I ask this because they offered me a refund for a cancelled flight. However, today I received an e mail stating they would give me a voucher or if I wanted a refund "You can request a cash refund however bear in mind we will place your request in the cash refund queue until the COVID-19 emergency has passed". That sounds like alarm bells of an airline in financial difficulty to me.

Not necessarily, just trying to hold on to their cash, like many others. Very O'Leary-esque!

Perhaps this line from their 2019 results might answer the question;
https://investor.ryanair.com/wp-cont...ual-Report.pdf

JAS

Anyone know how to request a cash refund ? I can't see any way of claiming the cash without having to go through a 3rd party - e.g. payment card chargeback, travel insurance, court, etc

Lets not shed a tear for Ryanair. They won’t crumble. Well not yet anyway.
Would be funny if O’leary came cap in hand to the money markets, and then they refuse to lend a penny.

whats happening to all the zero hour pilots, are they furloughed , or simply earning zero money for zero hours work?

On the two recently cancelled Ryanair flights as soon as I received the cancellation via email one of the three options was to request a refund. I duly filled in the form and hit the send button. As soon as I had finished there was an email from Ryanair in my inbox thanking me for my request and I would receive the refund in due course. A follow up email from them days later informed me of a possible delay due to high volume of requests. Currently await refund into my bank.
Following Ryanair cancellation I booked with Easyjet who later cancelled but no offer of refund just the usual rebook or voucher. Subsequently, only yesterday requested a refund via 'Resolver' to my card provider......today received a text from Nationwide along the lines that a request had been received and don't pester them because they are busy.

Have now received a Voucher from Ryanair although I requested a cash refund, they do give you the option on that email to request a refund by pressind 'here'......upon doing so it sends you into a page that says you can request refund but no way of doing it.......Hmmmmmm

I very much doubt that Ryanair is in any kind of financial difficulty.

However, there is a truly vast quantity of refunds to be processed and I suspect that a refund back to card needs rather more manual input than simply issuing a voucher. Having said that, O'Leary has no reason to make the process of a cash refund particularly quick - we do know that the company is extremely effective at making money by offering a basic service with add-ons? I'm just a bit surprised that there is not an option to accelerate your cash refund in exchange for a small payment? I suspect that may be illegal though.

I heard (radio 4, moneybox live) of people trying to rebook using voucher on the special refund/rebook website and being quoted £125 when flights on regular Ryanair website were as low as £16.99.

I’d take a voucher from BA but cash only from Ryanair.

No idea how true this is, but report that Lauda Air (subsidiary of Ryanair) cannot pay April salaries for German-based staff and wants pilots to move to the short-time working scheme that makes the German Govt liable insted - article in German
https://www.austrianaviation.net/det...icht-bezahlen/

No refund
 

Had similar for a flight canx in mid march..told initially not covered..then they would look into it. Made a further application..nowt. As it is I won't be flying anytime in the next six months especially after Air France put on a small airbus to Marseille and filled it up. No social spacing. And as my French brother said " Parisians- serves them right".

Exact same happened to me today, despite choosing a refund option I was issued a voucher and told I wont get a cash refund if I choose someone until the pandemic is over.

I've filed a section 75 complaint with my card issuer as this is a illegal

Would be very surprised if they are in financial trouble, more likely that MOL is playing his usual games and keeping hold of your cash for as long as possible whilst accruing enough interest to offset some of his losses. Cash is king and the longer he has your money the more time he buys for his business!

Seems to be something lost in translation - think its more "will" not rather than "cannot" so more a dispute about accepting reduced hours. If all the unions agree, the article says salaries will be paid in the first week of May.

No company has millions of £££ just sitting in bank account earning -2%, it can be tied up in various accounts for access when needed. All airlines are managing cash tightly at the moment, they want to be around next year.

I’m pretty certain I’ve read somewhere that United were offering cash refunds, but you’d have to wait 365 days for it! 😳

OMAA

Lufthansa, easyJet, Condor, ... are all using the short-time working scheme. Why would Lauda not do it?

Following cancellation by Ryanair of my flights for 31 March (two flights x three people each) I applied for the refund option via the link on the website at the time. Received an acknowledgment confirming that refund would be applied to my original payment method. Afew days later, emails advising not to contact them due volume of enquiries - everything was being processed. Finally, a couple of days back, email advising that I'd been allocated a VOUCHER to be used by mid-April 2021. NOT what I asked for.

I actually had 49 flight sectors booked at the point of lockdown, several of these with Ryanair / Laudamotion. All my Summer travel windows are occupied by other existing bookings (if they happen). So that means my voucher use will be limited to a short window in mid-Winter. And whilst there were three people on my booking, the other two are in the C-19 'vulnerable' category so may not be minded to travel at all. Which leaves one very high-value 'voucher' to use in a short and unsuitable period of time. If the voucher arrangement had been valid for two years (accommodating S2021 season) I'd have stuck with it. But they are not. So I'm pressing on for refund as originally agreed.

They say that if you want a cash refund you must click on a link in your email and apply via the webpage. But the landing page is actually one long catalogue of ways to rebook using your voucher. Hmmm. Down near the bottom of the page, you are invited to contact Ryanair by 'CHAT' to progress your case further. There is a chatbot ... well, Ryanair won't have programmed that to process refunds! But they also list hours in which agents will engage with you to address your query. You have to select a category of enquiry and fill in afew details. Then the page says you're in a queue and the next available agent will engage with you. Well, on Saturday I joined that queue at 14:51BST. By 19:00BST (end of their Saturday staffed hours) ... no response whatsoever. Gave it afew more minutes. NOTHING. They just ignore you.

Haven't contacted them today. Instead chased up the even more evasive AIR EUROPA. They're the worst. Believe me ... they make Ryanair look like bloomin' saints.

Tomorrow, attention turns back to Ryanair. I'll try the contact channel again. They'd be wise to engage with me. I book about thirty sectors per year with them for myself and many more for friends who ask me to book their trips for them. I can afford to switch future business to alternative carriers if Ryanair make it clear they cannot be trusted to honour their contractual obligations. It's up to them.

Meanwhile, carriers which have so far handled refunds for me very well are: SAS SCANDINAVIAN, NORWEGIAN, IBERIA EXPRESS, EASYJET*. Jury is out on AIR BALTIC ... I've applied for cash refund with them but keep getting emails from them pleading with me to accept vouchers instead. Well, since the route I booked was a new service which will not now launch this year the answer to that one is 'no'. Hall of shame: AIR EUROPA, RYANAIR.

As a very frequent flyer, I'll remember the companies which behaved honourably through all of this. And those which let themselves down. Yes, they're under pressure. But that includes the ones which are doing things right.

Note: I've read others complaining about EasyJet non-refunds. They were fine with me (one booking refunded smoothly). But more EasyJet cancellations in process ... I'll see how they do with those.

Has anyone tried using the small claims court or other legal routes to get heir money back? Or tried charging interest on the outstanding amount?

The husband of one of our Captains has given Ryanair another 7 days to pay before taking the matter to court, with the ultimate intention of having them wound up if they don't pay.

He is in business and is very legally minded (but not a lawyer), and I believe his intention is to force them to pay up as soon as possible rather than having to wait. I have no doubts he'll follow it through if they don't, so taking a tough stance will likely work against them, as (his words) they're not going to risk having to clear all their liabilities to avoid bankruptcy, so it won't go that far, therefore payment on receipt of a statutory demand is very likely.

I was looking earlier and was surprised the cost of getting to the stage where it could land them in extreme financial trouble is less than £400 (in the UK, not sure if the second part would have to be done in Ireland), which naturally they'd have to pay on top of the flights they owe him for already (not sure how many/how much).

I've only met him briefly, but I wouldn't want to call his bluff if I were in FR's position.

Similar problem with another Airline however the ticket was purchased through PayPal. Money retrieved by PayPal and returned after months of delays and promises by the airline. The bank also mentioned I could lodge a Credit Card transaction dispute for failure to provide the service, for a fee.

If you paid over £100 with a credit card, use a legally binding Section 75 claim via your credit card issuer. If you paid with a debit card, talk to your bank about chargeback. Banks might try to get rid of you by saying that a voucher is sufficient because the bank can't be bothered with the hassle, but it's worth persisting
https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/sh...our-purchases/
https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/sh...rd-chargeback/

Ryanair used to keep all their assets (apart from aircraft) solely in Ireland so difficult to enforce any order by a court in the UK. While the UK was a member of the EU, it was possible to use the pan-EU European Small Claims procedure in a court in the UK which was enforceable in Ireland. I believe this is still valid in the Brexit transition period - Google is your friend on this
https://www.gov.uk/recover-debt-from-eu

Alternately, go for the standard small claims court in the UK (simple procedure in the sherriff court in Scotland) and, if you have enough patience, try petitioning the High Court for the right to arrest one of Ryanair's aircraft while it's in the UK. Expensive route to take, but guaranteed to get the result you want very very quickly - along with some newspaper headlines

Final option is to get small claims court to confirm your opinion, and then have a moan to the CAA and see what happens. Ryanair are not a member of an Alternative DIspute Resolution scheme. The CAA will expect you to have correspondence proving you tried to resolve the matter directly. The UK CAA will get involed only in cases where a flight departed the UK - if the flight was to depart (for example) Madrid, they will direct you to their Spanish counterparts

I imagine Ryanair are betting that unless the amount is large, most people will decide to just accept a voucher, and then forget to use it within 12 months, by which time the voucher expires - so free revenue for Ryanair without even having to fly you anywhere !

Now I’m certainly not one for blowing Ryanair’s trumpet, but has it not dawned on many people that if there is a run on the (airline) bank, everyone loses in the longer term if that company goes bankrupt.

To answer the original question, that certainly will not be the case for FR but the other smaller companies that are certainly not as cash rich.

Those with the stronger balance sheets will be able to absorb this crisis and as a result competition falls through the floor and prices inevitably goes through the roof.

Is that what people want? Or do people want a reduction in air travel anyway, saved only for the elite and rich?

They are voting for things in large numbers which hark back to that era. So the consequences might not have occurred to them, but it seems that’s what they want. Blue passports which they can barely use, except a week every year in Benidorm (although they might have to settle for Tunisia or Turkey as anywhere eurozone will be too expensive for us).

If you are saying that UK passports will only allow entry into Spain or Tunisia then you’re simply making stuff up and lying to share your deluded world view. Please keep the insane politics for twitter. The bottom line is many people will need the money back given the massive levels of pressure many households are under. Not all can comfortably work from home, this will see many families broken so perhaps worrying about Ryanair’s finances is rightly not front and centre for many of their customers and it’s not unreasonable for Ryanair to give them their money back as Ryanair will not be providing the service they paid for. But yeah, “ blue passports”.....,

Suggest you read his last sentence more carefully.

Quite clearly that is not what I’m saying and if you choose to present those comments in any other way, with respect I say it’s you who is deluded or with your head in the sand.

Bringing Ryanair to court will get you nowhere, no matter what your legal status is. Especially now, theres a high amount of leverage given to companies in a bid to let them survive. Sure the whole EU thing is falling apart, even the GDPR is gone out the window! Things are changing

just look at their history of people bringing them to court. They always win, even if they loose in court.
They will drag you down financially in your court fees, appeals, until you eventually give up. They have money and you dont. Never underestimate rich people, money buy things.

As of now, a company that makes Billions of euro profits on every quarterly return, they have those billions sitting in the bank.

And the most scariest part here is, that when this Covid is gone, highly likely there will be only Ryanair that survives this war, which you know what will happen with the dominance of market. I wont go into this!

Not only that everyone knows that if every airline starts to goes bust the last two left will be SW and Ryanair - you'll all be able to get a loan when you could be a monopolist.........

Tilting at windmills

Wonder how many of Ryanair's reported cash billions are really prepaid bookings. As a constantly growing airline that usually mounts up, except for now.
Maybe credit card companies even for Ryanair have started holding back more of the prepays until closer to original departure date. And only issuing vouchers instead of refunds certainly would accelerate that trend. Can't expect an airline to cough up money they haven't actually got into their accounts yet.

Flying hasn't been cheaper than it is now. I don't think the industry has any real "buffer" in a case like this, and if they do, they'll be to expensive.

The crews and employees know this as well, hence why you see a lot of agreements between unions and companies in an effort to keep people employed.

Give the companies (not only Ryanair, a company everyone likes to complain about..... but still elect to fly with) some slack, at least for the time being....

Ryanair's expansion sounds like a pyramid scheme, the day they're not able to expand, they may crash.

note their cash to hold onto :)

The issue with a court case is you have to be able to front the costs, as if you win they are all recoverable. The key thing is by law, an airline that refuses to refund the payment for a cancelled flight in the time period specified by law is in default. If they cannot do it, they are insolvent, and there is a whole process for this. If several winding-up petitions were filed against a number of UK airlines it would cause a sea change in the approach

1. The government would be forced to publicly suspend the requirement to refund in a given time – leaving you as an unsecured creditor (maybe with share liability if you used a credit-card).
2. The government might realise that there is a larger systemic risk and as the funder of last resort, with by far the highest risk tolerance, step up to the plate. The government can borrow at 0% interest for effectively indefinite periods of time right now, so even passing on these as a loan would be nearly free.

Claims for refunds, particularly for LCCs over cancelled flights will almost never reach the winding up petition stage. Once a pan-Euopean small claims process reaches some kind of judgment, the airline will be notified of their default by the court, at which point the airlines pays up the few hundred pounds that it is owed. The airline is of course gambling that most people will not go through the court process to reach some kind of formal court judgment

From Gov.UK

To wind up a company you must:

• be owed £750 or more
• be able to prove that the company cannot pay you

I note the calls to make allowances for the airlines' difficult predicament and I have alot of sympathy with that idea. But the airlines must respect their customers and play fair. In my case, I've received two emails containing voucher codes instead of the full refund to my payment method which was promised. And Ryanair cancelled those flights, I didn't. The money in question doesn't belong to Ryanair ... it belongs to ME. I paid it over in good faith for a service which Ryanair was ultimately not able to deliver. If I make a booking with Ryanair and I'm the one who can't honour the terms of the contract, they make no special allowances for me.

Now, I'm actually not against the principle of accepting a voucher. But the deal has to be fair to both parties. The vouchers dumped on me have a value of around £280 and they expire in mid-April 2021. In theory, one year to use them. But we all know that this is complete nonsense. Summer 2020 is a virtual write-off already. And on my bookings there were three passengers, two of whom are in the C-19 vulnerable group. So that £280 must be used by me alone. IN WINTER. Even if bookings in late Summer were to be feasible, I have other unrelated trips already booked in the dates I have available. They may yet fall by the wayside too.

If Ryanair wants customers like me to go away quietly, they need to play fair with the voucher terms. And in my eyes, that means a TWO YEAR window to use them, starting from the date HMG lifts lockdown restrictions. Do this and there's a good chance I'd use them during Summer 2021. The airline would retain the funds, I wouldn't be robbed. But in the absence of this, I will push for the full refund which I was promised and which is payable to me by law. Times are difficult, but other airlines have already behaved honourably. The outliers for me are AIR EUROPA and RYANAIR which are both taking the proverbial.

And fares offered to customers redeeming vouchers MUST IN ALL CASES be priced exactly the same as those for new customers making bookings with cash.

MoneySavingExpert.com has today made formal complaints to the Civil Aviation Authority and Trading Standards.

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/ne...sting-refunds/

The vouchers must be used by April 2021................................. does it say the Flights must be booked and used by April 2021 ?
Somehow I doubt that which means you already have close to 2 years on it.

We're owed around £200 at the moment by Ryanair as we were due to travel a few times on blocks of 4 days off where the wife could get time off too. Vouchers are useless for us due to the following:

We're already booked away in August, so that's 5 flights with 5 airlines to 5 countries. Ryanair only flies to 3 of these and was only scheduled on 1 of the routes as that's all they operate. Ryanair also don't operate the AN-140, which is a plane we've tried to get on twice (there's only one left in passenger service globally) and ended up with an AN-24 (which is equally as interesting).

November (if it's possible) will need to be booked. Wizz offer at least double daily from Luton on the 2 routes it's likely to be, Ryanair only daily on 1, 10 a week on the other. We'll be travelling for an annual event, so no picking and choosing where or when.

That leaves a week of leave that will be taken in January/February, which is usually on a route that again Wizz serve with a quick connection through several European airports, or Ryanair with an overnight in either Bologna or Marseille due to timings, with a much more inconvenient arrival time.

I will be using them for a cigarette run as soon as flights are operating (likely book, fly on the next block of days off), but that will come to nowhere near £200. At least I hope it doesn't as the savings on what I bring back at a time don't come to much more than that. I usually bring back a few blocks every time I get a chance with work (which isn't often), however the stash ran completely dry a few weeks ago.

As mentioned above though, Ryanair are in legal default of their financial obligations, and there has been no exemption made to the legislation as far as I can see. They are therefore resting on the mercy of the traveller. Like many others, we'd specifically requested a refund, which was changed to a voucher by them. I was personally happy to wait a few more weeks, however am now on the verge of taking a zero-tolerance stance with the company.

I work for a carrier not mentioned at all in this post, but often use other airlines for convenience.

Didn't answer the question though .

Does flights and voucher have to be booked and used by April 2021 or can Voucher book flight beyond this date.