Ryanair passengers with cancelled f lights have to pay fees twice
RYANAIR passengers desperately trying to rebook flights have been left incensed at a second round of fees for checking-in bags and allocated seating.
The budget airline’s response to the chaos triggered by its decision at the weekend to cancel more than 2,000 flights was last night described as an ‘omni-shambles’ as its call centre struggled to cope with furious customers.
After 40 to 50 flights a day for the next six weeks were cancelled – affecting about 400,000 people – travellers rushing to rebook complained of either being unable to get through to an adviser or long waits on hold on a premium rate number. Others complained that the ‘live chat’ service on its website was not working.
Those who did manage to rebook were left furious after being forced to again pay hefty fees to check-in bags and choose seats, having already paid for them on their original flights.
The airline charges £2 per person for standard seats booked online, rising to £11 for certain priority seats, and at least £25 for each item of baggage.
Graham Walsh, from Borehamwood, Hertfordshire, said: ‘Ryanair charge again for seat allocation that you’ve already paid on the cancelled flight.’
Another passenger said: ‘The website didn’t want to let me book on the flight unless I paid twice for the seats and bags.’
In another chaotic day for Europe’s biggest airline, Ryanair promised to refund these customers. Its chief marketing officer Kenny Jacobs said: ‘We are aware of this issue and any customer who has been double charged for bags or allocated seating will be refunded.’
The airline also came under fire from passengers who couldn’t get through to its advisers, or being forced to wait on hold on its premium-rate helpline, racking up bills at 68p a minute. One passenger wrote on Twitter: ‘To anyone trying to call Ryanair – dig deep. I spent 15 minutes in a queue and it cost me £11.’
Another named Charlene wrote: ‘Ryanair, you cancel my flight tomorrow then I can’t get in contact! No link works and your phone and live chat are down!’
Ryanair insisted its chat service and call centres are ‘operating as normal’ but with ‘higher volumes’ of calls. It added: ‘We are doing our best to accommodate all affected customers.’
But leading consumer campaigner Martin Lewis criticised the airline’s reaction to the crisis. He said: ‘Ryanair’s response has been an omni-shambles, but it could never have been anything else. The company is simply not set up to deal with this. Its business model and infrastructure is designed to avoid one-to-one engagement between staff and customers to keep down costs.’
The airline is battling to cope with the fallout after cancelling 2,024 flights, which it blamed on ‘messing up’ its holiday rota for pilots, resulting in too many of them taking breaks at the end of the year.
Yesterday they were fresh tales of misery from passengers stranded abroad. One victim, Neil Johnson, told the BBC: ‘We managed to get flights to Liverpool at a cost of £1,500 and then had to get a taxi at the cost of £100 back to Manchester to collect our car for the final journey home. Ryanair is an absolute disgrace.’
Another unlucky passenger, Matt Briscoe, said: ‘Ryanair cancelled our return flight back to UK from Madrid. So now we are stranded! Three young children at home. Unbelievable.’