Lufthansa planes on the ground on March 23rd: Due to the corona crisis, thousands of flights were canceled, the repayment of tickets is slow
Photo: DANIEL ROLAND / AFPGermany’s top consumer advocate Klaus Müller has called for more pressure from the federal government on Lufthansa because of the slow repayment of tickets. "It cannot be that Lufthansa receives billions in aid from taxpayers' money and still forces customers to take illegal forced loans," said the head of the Federation of German Consumer Organizations (vzbv) to the partner newspapers of the Neue Berliner Redaktionsgesellschaft. The airline must fully reimburse all canceled flight tickets by the end of August.
A SPIEGEL report had already reported on the weekend that the federal government was upset about the delayed payment of the canceled tickets. After the massive flight cancellations in the Corona crisis, many consumers are still waiting weeks and months later for the legally binding reimbursement of their tickets. The companies actually have to reimburse the ticket price within seven days. "We are in excellent contact with the German federal government on the subject of reimbursements," said a Lufthansa spokeswoman at the weekend. In total, more than 2 billion euros have been paid out to the entire Lufthansa Group in 2020. Flights from March and April have already been largely processed. Less than a billion euros in reimbursements are still outstanding.
Tripling of the complaints
In the experience of Heinz Klewe, Managing Director of the Arbitration Board for Public Transport (SÖP), consumers understand that the seven-day period cannot be kept in view of the effects of the corona. But: "You get very angry if you don't receive any information or if the announced period for reimbursement is postponed from one month to the next."
The SÖP alone received more than 6,800 complaints in July, of which the vast majority (86 percent) related to flights. There were also complaints about train tickets. In June the total number was a good 5500, in July 2019 - without the Corona effect - around 2200. The SÖP numbers are available to the German Press Agency. "Welt am Sonntag" had previously reported on it.
As a result of the corona pandemic, air traffic almost completely collapsed in mid-March and thousands of flights were canceled. Lufthansa and other companies had initially relied on accepting customers with vouchers. However, this failed because of the EU Commission. At the beginning of July a law was passed in the Bundestag on how such vouchers should be designed. But nobody has to accept it, consumers can still have their money reimbursed.
Icon: The mirrorcaw / dpa-AFX
