Yahoo Finance BA debacle sees couple spend wedding night on an airport bench
Appropriately it was on April Fools’ Day that Matthew and Natalie Hogg boarded their Iberia flight to Cuba via Madrid for their honeymoon. What should’ve been a 15-hour journey ended up taking the newlyweds more than two days, their wedding night spent on an airport bench thanks to a barrage of mishaps and errors. The saga that unfolded highlights the inadequacy of consumer redress available when airlines dispute legal responsibilities.
“The flight from Heathrow to Madrid was cancelled due to brake failure after we’d spent 45 minutes on the runway,” says Natalie, a teacher from Ilford in Essex. “British Airways [Iberia’s sister company and UK handling agent] rebooked us on a BA flight to Istanbul for a connecting Turkish Airlines flight to Havana. When we reached Istanbul, Turkish Airlines had no record of us, no one from BA was available to help, and we were told we couldn’t retrieve our luggage from baggage reclaim unless we paid $20 (£15.80) each for Turkish visas. We ended up spending a night and a day at the airport with no accommodation or refreshments.” Eventually, they were flown to Amsterdam for a KLM flight to Havana the following dawn.
But the nightmare wasn’t over: while they made it to Cuba, their luggage didn’t. “We filled out the Property Irregularity Report at the airport and were told that, if we wanted the luggage to be delivered to our hotel 140 miles away, it could take up to five days,” says Natalie.
“We were advised to return to the airport the next day to collect it. Having missed out on our prepaid hotel in Havana while stranded in Istanbul, we had to forsake our prepaid room in Vinales and pay for an alternative hotel near the airport.” In all, the Hoggs forfeited nearly four days of their honeymoon and £440 in expenses and lost bookings because of the fiasco.
However, despite binding rules on compensation payouts for delayed flights and baggage, all the airlines involved initially absolved themselves from liability. Only after media involvement did BA refund the cost of the Turkish visas and offer a £200 e-voucher as goodwill.KLM, which wrongly claimed that the couple had not submitted the lost luggage paperwork in time, has now agreed to pay the hotel, taxi and living expenses incurred while the couple awaited their bags, as well as compensation.
Iberia, however, flatly refuses to pay €600 (£530) compensation which lawyers say was due when the flight was cancelled. Under EC Regulation 261/2004 passengers flying from, or to, an EU airport are entitled to a sliding scale of compensation depending on the length of the delay and the flight.
The exception is if the cause of the delay is an “extraordinary circumstance” beyond the airline’s control. The regulation fails to spell out what could be considered such a circumstance, but a supreme court ruling in 2014 established that technical failures are part and parcel of aviation and do not exempt airlines from paying out unless they are a hidden manufacturing fault. This, however, carries no weight with Iberia. “The flight was cancelled due to technical reasons, which was a ‘force majeure’ clause and not liable for compensation,” it says.
When The Observer pointed out that case law suggests otherwise, the airline insisted that a court would have to rule on that specific flight before it would pay up. Aviation solicitors Bott & Co, which sought the 2014 ruling, confirmed that Iberia should be liable.
Iberia’s intransigence exposes a loophole in available protection. Last year the UK’s aviation regulator, the Civil Aviation Authority, launched an ombudsman-style service with powers to make legally binding rulings on complaints. Its research had found that nearly six in 10 travellers were dissatisfied with the redress they received after complaining to their airline or holiday company. Up until 2016, passengers with unresolved complaints about an airline had to turn to the CAA, which lacked legal powers to enforce its decisions.
The problem is that the arbitration scheme is voluntary and Iberia is not part of it. Over the past year, around two thirds of airlines operating in and out of the UK have agreed to sign up to the Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR)services approved by the CAA or by other European authorities.
‘The system is hopelessly muddled, and doesn’t work in travellers’ best interests’
Alex Neill, Which?
This leaves passengers travelling with carriers that have declined to cooperate with no option except the courts if their complaint is not resolved. The CAA will still accept complaints about non-participating airlines if they concern a flight departing from the UK. It has begun charging airlines £150 for each case it receives to incentivise good behaviour, but if the airline chooses to ignore its decision, passengers face a court battle.
“It’s a bit of a lottery … if you’re flying into the UK with an overseas carrier, you’re subject to a foreign regulator or ADR scheme, possibly conducted in a foreign language,” says Martin Lewis of MoneySavingExpert.com.
Since the ADR scheme is voluntary, with an annual subscription and other fees charged to member airlines, the CAA has had to compromise to persuade airlines on board. It was forced to abandon plans for free arbitration and allows ADR providers to charge passengers up to £25 to lodge a complaint, although only one provider levies this and it is refundable if the claim is upheld.
Critics argue that because ADR providers are private companies in a competitive market, corners may be cut to save money. Ombudsman Services, the first body to be approved by the CAA, pulled out shortly before launching its aviation scheme last year because it was unhappy with the brief, especially the provision to charge passengers.
A spokesperson for the service, which handles complaints about energy, telecoms, property and consumer issues, explains: “When Alternative Dispute Resolution in aviation first became a possibility, it looked like it would be similar to the regulated sectors in which we work. The reality has been very different with price, rather than quality, being the dominant factor.”
According to campaign group Which?, the fact that airlines can choose between four CAA-approved ADR providers, and several more in Europe, is needlessly confusing. “The system is hopelessly muddled and doesn’t work in travellers’ best interests,” says Alex Neill, Which? managing director of home products and services. “The government should legislate for a new mandatory ombudsman that all airlines must join.”
The CAA says that since two thirds of flights to and from the UK are now covered by an ADR scheme, there are no plans to lobby for legislation to make membership compulsory.
That leaves passengers such as the Hoggs high and dry. They can escalate their complaint to the CAA, but if Iberia refuses to cooperate there is nothing it can do. “It has proved incredibly frustrating battling so many airlines, all adamant that we had accepted any costs and risks when we accepted the reroute,” says Natalie.
“Each one was uncompromising, and their pitiless customer service ruined our honeymoon.”
HOW TO COMPLAIN
If an airline or airport fails to resolve a complaint it should send a “letter of deadlock” containing details of which ADR scheme, if any, it subscribes to. If you havn’t received one within eight weeks, you may be able to enlist an ADR scheme.
Four providers have been approved by CAA. The Retail Ombudsman has 20 member airlines and three pending; CEDR has four; and German scheme, söp, seven. NetNeutrals so far has no participating carriers. CEDR is the only one to levy a £25 charge for unsuccessful complaints.
The schemes aim to achieve a resolution within 60-90 days, or to tell you within 21 days if they can’t help. You don’t have to accept a decision and can take your claim to court. The airline is legally bound to comply if you do agree. But that’s not always the end. Allan and Mary Jefferis complained to söp when Eurowings refused to pay compensation for an eight-hour delay due to damage from an unspecified “foreign object”.
In March, söp ruled that €800 (£705) was payable and Eurowings, which clarified the cause as a bird strike, accepted. When the couple sought payment in May, it claimed to know nothing of the ruling and refused. Four days earlier the European court of justice had ruled bird strikes were an “extraordinary circumstance” and exempt from compensation.
Eurowings has not replied to requests for a comment, but söp chased the budget carrier which apologised and promised the money will arrive “soon”.
