Which? responds to Ryanair flight cancellations
Alex Neill, Which? Managing Director of Home Products and Services, said:
“Ryanair’s cancellation of hundreds of flights at short notice is a nightmare for its passengers, with thousands facing huge inconvenience and many more left in the dark with no idea whether their flights will be affected or not.
“Ryanair must urgently publish the full schedule of impacted flights. Until this is released, it should let passengers cancel their flights without penalty. It must also honour its legal duty to arrange alternative flights or provide a full refund, inform passengers of their rights and proactively pay compensation and reimburse reasonable out of pocket expenses.
“This highlights once again the need for automatic compensation across the industry. Ryanair should now take the initiative and pay out to passengers it knows are entitled to compensation without making people jump through hoops.”
Background:
- We are calling on Ryanair to make sure people are rebooked on to flights, refunded for reasonable additional expenses due to re-routing, and paid the statutory compensation that many passengers will be legally entitled to under the Denied Boarding Regulations
Beyond the Denied Boarding Regulations rules, Which? wants Ryanair to:
- release a full list of flights that will be affected so that passengers have as much time as possible to make alternate arrangements
- allow people to cancel their future flights without any penalty until this list is published
- proactively inform passengers of their rights and to quickly and automatically compensate anyone who is affected
- pay out of pocket expenses for people who have had to face additional costs as a result of the delays suffered on a re-routed flight.
Passenger rights
- For those passengers who are currently stranded, they will be entitled to statutory compensation (including accommodation, travel etc if they are being re-routed).
- Any passengers travelling in under two weeks will be entitled to compensation, unless they have been put on a similar flight (similar time, same day etc) at no extra cost.
- If the re-routed flight arrives at its destination within 2 hours of the original flight (for short haul), 3 hours (for medium haul) and 4 hours (for long haul), Ryanair may reduce the compensation by 50%.
In July, Which? analysis of Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) data found that where passengers took a compensation complaint against Ryanair to the regulator, Ryanair were in the wrong in 77% of cases. They then failed to pay out in 19% of cases despite being ruled against
Passengers can find out more about their rights for a cancelled flight at http://www.which.co.uk/cons
Automatic compensation campaign – https://campaigns.which.co.u
Statement