Airline to pay couple £ 1k for misspelt plane ticket
Spelling error... the judge said Lufthansa had swapped ‘ i’ and ‘ q’ in Veronique’s name, not the couple
A FURIOUS holidaymaker who had to pay almost £ 1,000 extra because an airline spelled his wife’s name wrong on her plane ticket has won his money back in court.
Maxime Audet had to stump up for a new ticket after realising at the last minute that his Veronique’s name appeared with two letters the wrong way round as “Veronqiue” on the booking for their £ 2,000 trip to Canada last Christmas.
German travel giants Lufthansa claimed the error was Mr Audet’s and said they could not correct it administratively, demanding he pay for a new ticket or his wife could not travel at all.
Representing himself, the Deloitte actuary, 34, took the air giant to Central London County Court and had the charge overturned.
Judge Susan Jackson found that the spelling mistake was the airline’s fault and that they had no right to charge for a whole new ticket anyway.
She said Lufthansa had not provided an internal receipt as evidence
that the mistake was down to Mr Audet, rather than the airline’s error. She said: “I think it is more likely than not that he would have got his wife’s name correct. In my judgment, the mistake was not Mr Audet’s.”
Lufthansa was ordered to pay the couple, from east London, £ 1,058.41 for the ticket refund, admin costs, interest and court fee.
His wife Veronique LeVasseur, 37, a Eurostar food and drinks buyer, said: “It’s important to make sure our rights are respected as a customer. Usually you can give up.
“It’s like David and Goliath but it’s not impossible to win.”