The Limited Times

Now you can see non-English news...

“That borders on chicane”: Lufthansa and Ryanair have so far reimbursed so few travel expenses

2020-08-24T10:37:33.970Z


Many customers have been waiting for a reimbursement of their travel expenses from airlines such as Lufthansa or Ryanair for months. The first court rulings are now being issued.


Many customers have been waiting for a reimbursement of their travel expenses from airlines such as Lufthansa or Ryanair for months. The first court rulings are now being issued.

  • Since April, Flightright has received more than 60,000 inquiries from passengers about ticket reimbursements for Corona flight cancellations .
  • More than half of the inquiries relate to canceled flights from Ryanair and the Lufthansa Group.
  • This corresponds to reimbursement claims in the double-digit million range .

Flightright took numerous passengers to court against Lufthansa *, Ryanair and other airlines. Now there have been the first judgments due to outstanding refunds for Corona flight cancellations.

Travel refunds are a long time coming: judgments against Lufthansa and Ryanair

Since many airlines did not pay ticket refunds after Flightright's requests for payment, the portal filed lawsuits in the spring. It all started with proceedings against Lufthansa and Ryanair. The first judgments have now been passed on the proceedings against Lufthansa and Ryanair . There are now more than 20 judgments against Lufthansa, e.g. B. before the AG Erding (Az. 15 C 2780/20). The judgments are so-called acknowledgment judgments. This means that the airline did not defend itself on the matter and recognized the claims.

Ryanair defended itself in a number of proceedings and argued in court that their declaration of intent to pay at some point in the future was sufficient and therefore no legal action was necessary. The courts (e.g. AG Nürnberg Az. 19 C 3826/20) gave this argument a clear rejection, since easing payments or postponing payments due to the corona pandemic are not justified and Ryanair therefore clearly reimburses within the one-week period should have done .

“It is simply not understandable that the airlines even let it come to a lawsuit in the first place, despite the absolutely clear legal situation, and in these and in many other cases it is only used to delay reimbursement payments. This delaying tactic is by no means customer-friendly ”, says Oskar de Felice, legal expert at Flightright. In more than 900 cases so far in which Flightright had filed lawsuits against different airlines, the airlines paid either immediately after the complaint was filed, after admission decisions or after court decisions.

Corona pandemic: Still hardly any reimbursements from the largest airlines

Above all, Lufthansa and Ryanair keep their passengers waiting despite clear court decisions and a clear legal situation. Both airlines announced in the past few months that reimbursements would be processed more quickly. Many thousands of travelers are still waiting for their money. A look at the data from Flightright shows: Lufthansa has so far only paid 9 percent of the refunds (as of 08/20/2020). Even with Ryanair, travelers still have to be very patient. In July it was announced from Ireland that the ticket refunds for the last few months would be processed by the beginning of August. So far, however, Flightright has only recorded a repayment in three percent of the cases (as of 08/20/2020).

Read on : Travel reimbursements: This airline pays customers their money back the fastest.

Oskar de Felice comments: “As an airline, you can't hold off your customers for months and get rid of empty promises. The necessary but superfluous step in court shows that airlines are simply acting arbitrarily. That borders on chicane , because the legal situation is clear: our customers must be paid their rightful reimbursement on time. " Flightright is currently bringing around 1,000 lawsuits against Lufthansa . Around 2,300 ticket reimbursement lawsuits are pending against Ryanair.

Travel refunds: Increasing willingness to pay with some airlines

Flightright has noticed a rethinking of reimbursement payments at many other airlines: “After we started to go to court and received the first positive verdicts, we have observed in recent weeks that more and more airlines are meeting their payment obligations. This is a very positive development for many passengers, ”continued de Felice. These airlines include EasyJet, TUIfly, Singapore Airlines, Condor and Eurowings. The Flightright ticket reimbursement monitor provides an up-to-date overview of the airlines' payment behavior. 

Also read : How likely is a corona infection on the plane? Surprising study result.

You should urgently avoid these mistakes in travel cancellation insurance

You should urgently avoid these mistakes in travel cancellation insurance

Source: merkur

All news articles on 2020-08-24

You may like

Life/Entertain 2024-03-26T10:45:02.510Z

Trends 24h

News/Politics 2024-03-28T06:04:53.137Z

Latest

© Communities 2019 - Privacy

The information on this site is from external sources that are not under our control.
The inclusion of any links does not necessarily imply a recommendation or endorse the views expressed within them.