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Summer 2016 blighted by flight delays and cancellations
Almost £130 million will be left unclaimed for summer flight delays, according to flight compensation company EUclaim.
The company says British holiday makers are failing to claim compensation owed to them by airlines as figures show this summer has been the worst for airline passengers since its records began in 2014.
According to its own research, EUclaim says there were almost 4,500 cancelled and delayed flights in July and August this year.
Of these, 76% were claimable.
In comparison, there were 3,500 incidents in the same period in 2015 and in 2014.
UK manager Adeline Noorderhaven said delays and cancellations were due to French Air Traffic Controller strikes, bad weather, the Turkish military coup, protests and a potholed runway at Gatwick.
"All-in-all Brits have faced a summer of travel misery and we would encourage anyone who has been delayed or cancelled to get in touch," she said.
"Airlines will never proactively offer compensation and we believe the EU – the body that regulate flight delay compensation – should look long and hard at whether the airlines are doing enough by the consumer and operating within the spirit of the existing regulation."
July 11 was identified as the worst day for passengers, with 125 incidents, the majority blamed by airlines on ‘freak weather’.
Sunday August 14 was the best day for travellers this year with only 26 incidents.
Earlier this year, EUClaim unveiled a ‘carriers of shame‘ list, based on which carriers had been most complained about to the firm.
Noorderhaven admitted airlines were victim to a rise in ‘extraordinary incidents’, such as ATC strikes, but she said tight crew duty scheduling and high load factors, particularly by low-cost airlines, meant airlines cannot react swiftly enough to these issues.
This allow problems to flow into their entire rotation and even into other days, she said.
Bev
Editor in chief Bev Fearis has been a travel journalist for 25 years. She started her career at Travel Weekly, where she became deputy news editor, before joining Business Traveller as deputy editor and launching the magazine’s website. She has also written travel features, news and expert comment for the Guardian, Observer, Times, Telegraph, Boundless and other consumer titles and was named one of the top 50 UK travel journalists by the Press Gazette.
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