YOU HAVE YOUR SAY
EVERY week Money Mail receives hundreds of your letters and emails about our stories. Here’s what you had to say about our report on the dirty tricks airlines use to avoid paying compensation when your flight is delayed. IT ANNOYS me when people say compensation claims will cause our ticket prices to rocket. If there was no entitlement to compensation, airlines would have no incentive to prioritise timely travel over profit — they could delay our flights by hours and it wouldn’t bother them in the slightest.
M. S., London
I USED to think the compensation rule would lead to a big rise in our f ares. Then my 1 8- year- old daughter was stuck in Manchester Airport for 23 hours. She had to sleep on the floor, only got a couple of sandwiches to tide her over and missed a day of a week’s holiday. Airlines need this incentive to treat customers better.
M. T., Yorkshire
IN OCTOBER 2013, my wife and I were delayed for more than six hours. No one told us what was going on or even apologised. Perhaps if we’d been treated better during our delay, I would have been less inclined to chase them for compensation.
P. S., by email
PEOPLE say that forcing airlines to pay compensation for delays will lead to unsafe aircraft in the skies, as they will cut corners to get planes out on time. As if an airline would put their pilots and crew in danger.
N. E., Nottingham
YOU wouldn’t believe the excuses I was given when I tried to claim compensation for an 11-hour delay. It took two years to finally get the money to which I was entitled. The moral of the story here is to not give up. Airlines are relying on you to do just that.
D. D., by email
PERHAPS the EU should lower the amount of compensation airlines pay out to passengers. To get more compensation than the price of your ticket isn’t really justifiable. All that will happen is our air fares will go up.
G. G., Marlow, Bucks
IT TOOK intervention by the Civil Aviation Authority to finally get a payout after I was delayed. But because of the fall of the euro, we got about £50 less than if they had settled eight months ago. And that was after they tried to fob me off with vouchers to use on another of their flights.
C. R., Cardiff