Report outlines airline failure chaos

Friday, 04 Oct, 2005 0

Families had to fork out an average of £400 for flights home and transfers to Manston Airport in Kent following the collapse of low cost carrier EUJet in July, according to the CAA.

In a study into the failure, a picture has emerged of confusion, anger and frustration among passengers who received scant information and were left significantly out of pocket.

Using the report to bolster its arguments for the introduction of a £1 consumer protection levy, the CAA said: “If a managed scheme with a central administrator was in place, repatriation could have been organised more cheaply, at no cost to the passengers and they would have been able to travel as intended with little or no disruption to their holiday and therefore less anxiety.

“Passenger yet to travel would also receive a refund irrespective of whether they paid by credit card or debit card.”

The latter remark followed a survey which showed 31% of passengers yet to travel had paid by debit card or cash and were therefore not eligible for a refund.

The survey, completed by almost 1100 passengers, revealed that 67% believed they were protected or did not know about protection, two thirds of whom believed they would receive financial help.

A quarter of respondents said they were “very disappointed that nothing covered them for the airline failure” and that there was a “total lack of support or help.”

More than one in ten said the lack of information was the worst aspect of the failure while 9% said “protection for all customers should be in place” and wanted “a small levy to cover such costs.”

The CAA insisted the comments relating to protection were unprompted.

The report added that passengers paid an average of £100 each to return to Manston. Although several airlines offered £25 deals to fly EUJet passenger’s home, only 16% obtained the low cost fares.

“Some airlines restricted the offers to standby seats only and did not permit passengers to book in advance,” the report said.

The CAA and other industry bodies are pressing for the £ levy to be introduced to the Aviation Bill.

Report by Steve Jones