Many passengers who had cancellations and delays last year now say that they don’t trust airlines to respect their rights in the event of future flight disruption. That’s according to a new Which? Travel survey.
We polled 1,000 people who flew from a UK airport between January and October 2022, and 411 of them said they’d experienced a problem with their recent flight - mostly delays.
Of these, almost half said that they wouldn’t be confident that their airline would treat them well if they had similar problems in the future.
Even among those who didn't experience problems, trust was low, with 39% not confident they’d be looked after if problems occurred in future.
Separately, a CAA report has heavily criticised eight of the busiest UK airports for the way they treated older and disabled passengers in spring 2022.
Long delays, cancellations and lost luggage
Many of the people in our survey were affected by the travel chaos that hit airlines and airports in spring and early summer 2022, after the last Covid restrictions were lifted.
A shortage of staff meant some airlines, particularly British Airways and easyJet, cancelled thousands of flights. There were also serious delays and long queues at airports.
In our survey, 73% of those who had a problem said their flight was delayed. Almost a third of these said they were delayed for more than two hours, meaning the airline is responsible for providing food and drink vouchers. Those who waited more than three hours were potentially entitled to compensation of between £220 and £520.
Older and disabled people hit hardest during travel chaos
The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) has released a report on special assistance for people with restricted mobility - and it shows shocking failures by some airports.
Eight airports - Birmingham, Bristol, Gatwick, Heathrow, Leeds Bradford, Luton, Manchester and Stansted - were branded as ‘poor’ in spring 2022.
While most improved later in the summer, Luton Airport’s performance was poor throughout the reporting period, which ran until October. The CAA said: ‘Too many passengers at the airport have been waiting for unacceptable amounts of time for assistance on arriving flights on too many occasions.’
Luton Airport told us that it was sorry to have fallen short and said that it is working with its provider to improve assistance times for passengers with reduced mobility, the area in which it missed the CAA target.
Heathrow, Leeds Bradford and Bristol were all rated as ‘needs improvement’ by October. Birmingham and Manchester were ‘good’ and Stansted and Gatwick were ‘very good’.
How can you protect yourself against flight problems?
- Choose an airline that’s less likely to cancel your flight, or to let you down if it does. Some carriers were better than others in helping disrupted passengers, both during the pandemic and after restrictions were lifted.
- If you’re also booking accommodation, then consider booking a package - rather than flights and hotels separately. You’ll have better protection under the Package Travel regulations.
- Book with a credit card. If you buy something, such as a flight, that costs between £100 and £30,000 you get additional legal protection that you wouldn’t get if you paid by debit card. This can make it easier to get your money back for cancelled flights. You’ll also be protected if your airline goes bust.
- Buy travel insurance before you book. Travel insurance will cover you for events, such as inability to fly because of illness, that aren’t covered by your ticket.
- Make sure to claim compensation. If your flight is severely delayed or cancelled, you’re likely to be owed between £220 and £520 (unless the airline can prove the delay or cancellation is caused by ‘extraordinary circumstances’ and there was nothing it could have done to get you to your destination on time).
- Escalate your claim, if it’s turned down by the airline. If your airline turns down your claim, or doesn’t respond, you can take it to one of the adjudication schemes regulated by the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA). Most airlines in the UK belong to AviationADR. While we have criticised the scheme, it is free and preferable, at least initially, to taking expensive, time-consuming legal action. British Airways belongs to CEDR, which charges £25 if your claim is not successful - but which is free if your claim is upheld.
Which? calls on the government to strengthen Civil Aviation Authority powers
Which? is calling on the government to urgently follow through on proposals to give the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) the powers it needs to clamp down on airlines when they flout the law.
Despite Which? Travel sending the CAA reports of numerous breaches of consumer protection law by airlines, it’s only taken enforcement action once in the past 19 years.
While the action against Ryanair, for failure to compensate passengers after strikes by its own staff in 2018, was successful, it was only at the end of last year that the airline finally accepted it had to pay.
How we carried out our survey
An agency appointed by Which? conducted an online survey, between 11 and 21 October 2022, of 1,000 UK adults who have flown between January and October 2022 from a UK airport.
source https://www.which.co.uk/news/article/travel-chaos-means-almost-two-fifths-of-passengers-no-longer-trust-airlines-ad1QD5X0bcso