1.2m missing out on compensation cash for delays to f lights

MoRE than a million British air passengers could be owed up to £360 each in compensation over severe delays to flights.

A study found almost 1.2million are entitled to a payout after their short or medium-haul flights were delayed by three hours or more last year.

This equates to about 3,300 people every day who experienced severe delays on flights to or from Britain that were supposed to be only a few hours long.

The investigation by consumer group Which? found the number of people on delayed flights with easyJet, British Airways and Ryanair has doubled in five years, and hold-ups at some of Britain’s busiest airports have risen sharply.

EU rules state passengers flying from the EU, or with an EU airline, are entitled to between £220 and £360 compensation on short-haul flights, and up to £535 for longer flights, depending on the length of delay.

But many passengers do not bother to claim as they are put off by the bureaucracy. Airlines are also highly adept at wriggling out of paying compensation, regularly citing ‘extraordinary circumstances’.

This is legitimate in cases such as extreme weather or an air traffic control strike. But it has been used as an easy getout clause by firms, which use a range of excuses such as unforeseen technical difficulties and lack of staff to avoid paying.

Last night, Which? said ‘ enough is enough’. The consumer group called on ministers to force airlines to automatically

‘Force airlines to get their act together’

pay compensation for severe delays. The call was backed by Labour MP John Mann and Tory MP Huw Merriman. Mr Mann said: ‘This would soon force airlines to get their act together as these delays would start costing them. The current compensation system is unreliable, bureaucratic and slow. Airlines need to up their game.’

Mr Merriman, a former member of the Commons transport committee, added: ‘Airlines know which flight its passengers are on, their bank details and the length of any delay. If they do not make compensation an automatic transaction then the Government should force them to do so.’

The study for the Daily Mail covered 25 UK airports in the year 2016/17. It included short and medium-haul flights under 2,175 miles, covering much of Europe and as far east as Lebanon. There were just under 1.2million seriously delayed passengers, up almost 50 per cent from around 800,000 in 2011/12.

Using Civil Aviation Authority data excluding long-haul flights, Which? found 191,000 easyJet passengers were delayed by three hours or more in 2016/17, up 111 per cent from 2011/12, while the number of flights run by the airline rose by only 24 per cent.

For BA, the number of seriously delayed passengers nearly doubled to 131,000 over the same period. operated The rose numberby just 21 of per flights cent. it The number of Ryanair passengers who experienced severe delays doubled to 90,000. This dwarfed the 58 per cent rise in the number of flights it operates. Looking at major airports during the same five years, the study found the number of passengers delayed by three hours or more increased by 60 per cent to 264,000 at Gatwick, rose to 240,000 at Heathrow, and jumped 212 per cent at London City airport.

The delays fell at Manchester, Newcastle and Glasgow.

Alex Neill of Which? – which has released a guide showing passengers how to claim compensation, below – said: ‘Passengers are fed up with airlines giving a poor service, then adding insult to injury by making them jump through hoops to get the money they are entitled to … they should compensate passengers automatically.’

An easyJet spokesman said in 2017 ‘less than 0.8 per cent’ of its flights would be delayed by more than three hours. A BA spokesman said the ‘vast majority’ of its services run on time and it ‘always’ meets obligations to pay EU compensation. Ryanair’s Kenny Jacobs said its ‘on-time performance … averages 90 per cent’.

A spokesman for Gatwick said in recent years it had been ‘disproportionately affected by issues beyond our control’. A Heathrow spokesman said there is ‘ little scope in the system to cope with delays caused by bad weather’.