British Airways ‘refuse to pay back families who booked new tickets on other airlines’
Faced with massive queues at the airport and call centre, thousands of passengers bought tickets with other airlines
BRITISH Airways has told stranded passengers who desperately booked trips with other airlines to reach their destination this weekend that they won't refund them for the fares after a massive IT meltdown at Gatwick and Heathrow Airports, it has been claimed.
The airline's check-in and operational systems crash - which hit 200,000 passengers trying to travel on the Bank Holiday weekend - is set to cost the company £300million in compensation.
Around one quarter of Sunday's flights set to depart from Heathrow were cancelled by 4pm, despite the airline vowing to run the majority of services at London's major transport hub.
BA said it hoped to be running a near-normal schedule of flights from Gatwick.
The reports the company has risked a furious backlash after allegedly stating they won't refund affected passengers' tickets on other airlines.
BA is reportedly telling passengers: “If we weren't able to offer a suitable alternative flight we would offer a full refund of any unused sectors on your booking with us, but any alternative flights booked via different carriers would be at your own expense and would have to be claimed back through travel insurance.”
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This comes as many passengers complained about long waits at the airport or trying to contact the call centre.
Mark Dillingham, who spent £1,000 on new flights on Lufthansa, told The Independent: “Do we lose this money even though British Airways was uncontactable?
"We couldn't enter the terminal, and the phone lines were shut.”
When approached for a comment on reimbursing passengers' tickets with other airlines, BA said: "We would ask our customers to get in touch with us directly via our Manage My Booking tool on or our contact centres so that we can re-book or re-route them to their destination as quickly and easily as possible."
The regulation on payouts
- Under EU law customers whose flights were delayed or cancelled are entitled to assistance and compensation, if the disruption was within the airline's control
- The airline must offer food and drink, as well as access to phone calls and emails, if there were significant delays
- This applies to short-haul flights delayed by at least two hours, medium-haul by three or long-haul by four
- For overnight delays, airlines must provide accommodation and transfers between the airport and the hotel
- Airlines have to offer full refunds, paid within seven days, or rebookings for a flight cancelled at short notice. Passengers can also claim for compensation
- Cancellation compensation amounts are: 250 euros (£218) for short-haul, 440 euros (£384) for medium-haul and 600 euros (£523) for long-haul
- Passengers who reach their destination more than three hours late are entitled to compensation ranging from 200 to 600 euros, depending on the length of the flights and delay
- The compensation is not automatic - customers have to write a letter of complaint to the airline
- More information and a template letter can be found on the website of consumer watchdog Which? -
Boss Alex Cruz has been blamed for the disaster by GMB union bosses, as it was claimed "inexperienced staff in India didn’t know how to kick-start the airline’s back-up system"
The chief executive, who founded budget carrier Clickair and ran airline Vueling before moving to work for British Airways in 2016, has been accused of replacing British IT professionals with cheap overseas workers since taking the role.
Despite initial reports from passengers that the disruptions had been caused by a cyber attack, BA has said that a "power supply issue" was most likely behind the global IT failure.
Chief executive Cruz said: "We believe the root cause was a power supply issue and we have no evidence of any cyber attack."
Have you been affected by British Airways' computer problems? Contact The Sun Online's news team by emailing [email protected] or call us on 0207 782 4368