Airlines operating in the EU will have to quickly improve how they handle flight cancellations that are caused by the pandemic in order to respect consumer rights—including the right to a refund. They were urged to do so by the European Commission and the national authorities that are members of the Consumer Protection Cooperation Network (CPC) on Monday, 28 June.
This action follows a large number of consumer complaints and is based on the results of a survey launched in March to collect data on how 16 major airlines were handling complaints (see EUROPE 12668/12).
“Airlines need to respect the rights of consumers when flights are cancelled. Today we are asking for simple solutions to give consumers certainty after a period of extreme turmoil,” commented European Commissioner for Justice Didier Reynders (see other news in this bulletin as well).
For instance, airlines must inform passengers that they have the right to exchange their vouchers for money at any time. However, most of them did not reimburse passengers within the 7-day period provided for by EU law.
Airlines must take steps to ensure that this time frame is respected for all new bookings—whether made directly or through an intermediary—and to clear the backlog of pending reimbursements quickly, by 1 September 2021 at the latest.
See the list of measures to be taken: https://bit.ly/2UbKhDE (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)