Too many customers will win their money back!
In a leaked letter, Jet2 boss reveals why it won’t join new flight delay compensation service . . .
TODAY, Money Mail can reveal the extraordinary excuses that Jet2 uses to weasel out of a scheme that ensures customers get fair compensation for flight delays.
Jet2 is the only one of the ten largest airlines to refuse to join a complaints service set up by the aviation watchdog two years ago to stop firms blocking claims.
More than a million passengers across all airlines suffer flight delays every year — and many are eligible for up to £532 in compensation under EU law.
Companies do not have to pay compensation if the reason for the delay was outside their control, such as bad weather or terrorist attack. But for years firms tried to use this exemption to avoid paying legitimate claims.
Now, major players including British Airways, Ryanair and easyJet allow customers to take rejected claims to an independent arbitrator.
But Jet2’s refusal to sign up to the service means families who are fobbed off have to go to court to force the airline to pay out, which can be expensive and time-consuming.
Money Mail has seen an eight-page letter to the Civil Aviation Authority, signed by the executive chairman of Britain’s fourth biggest airline, which tries to justify Jet2’s controversial stance.
In it, Jet2 boss Philip Meeson writes that he is worried about the ‘ extraordinarily’ high levels of payouts customers are winning and questions whether the independent adjudicators can be trusted.
He also accuses customers who use the service of looking for a ‘ windfall’ where none is due and says that the £25 service is too cheap and therefore encourages unscrupulous claims.
And, incredibly, he says his staff would struggle to meet the 15-day time limit on responding to complaints — particularly over the Christmas and New Year holiday period — even though this hasn’t proved a problem for rival airlines.
In a thinly veiled threat, he even warns that Jet2 would hike ticket prices if it joined the scheme.
In his response, Andrew Haines, CAA chief executive, accuses Jet2 of disregarding the rights of its customers. He also calls Jet2’s stream of excuses a ‘transparently narrow and self-interested set of arguments’.
The row is the latest controversy for Jet2, which has been at the forefront of several legal battles to reduce the amount of compensation airlines have to pay to passengers when flights are delayed or cancelled.
Under EU law 261, you are usually entitled to up to £532 if you arrive at your destination more than three hours late.
In 2014, Jet2 tried to argue that airlines should not have to pay for delays caused by technical faults. But the Court of Appeal ruled that, unlike bad weather, the faults could not be considered an extraordinary circumstance and the Supreme Court refused to hear the airline’s appeal.
The following year the CAA found that Jet2 was still trying to wriggle out of paying compensation by classifying ordinary technical faults as hidden manufacturing defects.
The airline also tried to include a rule in its contract that passengers only have two years after a delay to claim — even though the Court of Appeal had already ruled in a separate case that they have six years.
Previously, if customers were unhappy with an airline’s decision they could take the complaint to the CAA. But its ruling is not now binding, so airlines can ignore it.
In 2016, after a Money Mail campaign, the CAA set up an alternative dispute resolution scheme where passengers’ cases are heard by an independent adjudicator.
You have up to a year after the airline’s final rejection letter to refer your case to the service and the adjudicator’s decision is final. The scheme is only voluntary at present, but 35 airlines have signed up, covering 80 pc of all journeys.
There are two main dispute services that airlines can sign up to — CEDR and AviationADR. British Airways, for example is with CEDR, while Flybe is with AviationADR.
So far, more than 10,000 passengers have escalated a complaint to one of the two. More than 90 pc were about delays, cancellations and denials of boarding.
On average, complaints were upheld by CEDR in nine in ten cases, and in 71 pc by AviationADR. The high rates are cited by Jet2 as a reason it won’t join.
In his letter to the CAA, Mr Meeson says: ‘ Based on its experience, Jet2.com considers that such a success rate is extraordinarily high and confirms that Jet2. com’s evaluation that ADR is intrinsically unsuitable for EU261 cases.
‘Many customers do not understand the intricacies of [these cases] and make claims more out of hope than a justified belief that their claims will be successful,’ he adds.
Mr Meeson says it would be better if customers were forced to take cases to court as high fees act as a ‘deterrent to unmeritorious claims’. The maximum charge for taking a complaint to an independent dispute service is just £ 25 — which is refunded if you win. It can cost more than £ 100 and many months of preparation to take your case to court. In the CAA’ s response to Mr Meeson’s letter, chief executive Mr Haines, writes: ‘Your letter was surprising and extremely disappointing on two fronts: your apparent disregard for the rights of customers when your levels of service fall below that which you say you aspire to, and secondly the poor and inconsistent case you make in seeking to defend, what I regard, as your indefensible position.
‘Although you obviously prefer to take your customers to court rather than to give them access to ADR, we feel strongly that such an approach is not in consumers’ interests, given the time, cost and stress involved for consumers in taking court action.’
The CAA also suggests it is hypocritical of Jet2 not to sign up to the dispute service when the package holidays side of its business is part of the similar Association of British Travel Agents dispute scheme, also run by CEDR. Jet2 customers can still refer cases to the CAA.
A Jet2 spokeswoman says: ‘We have carefully explained to the CAA why we don’t consider the scheme to be currently suitable for EU261 delay claims (over threehour delays), where complex disputes have to be resolved involving difficult factual and technical issues and matters of European law. We have replied to a recent letter from the CAA, reiterating our position and requesting a meeting, so that we can discuss this matter in a constructive fashion.’