AIRLINES including British Airways are cancelling flights, leaving disappointed holidaymakers hoping to at least get a refund.
Getting compensation if your flight is cancelled should be simple, but sometimes it can be difficult – so you should make sure you know your rights.
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Usually if passengers are given less than two weeks’ notice that their flight is cancelled they are eligible for compensation.
The refund can be worth up to around £500, depending on the length of the cancelled flight.
An airline can only refuse to pay compensation if the cancellation was due to an “extraordinary circumstance”.
BA has cancelled hundreds of flights since February and EasyJet is set to remove a number of seats on its flights so that the airline can fly with less crew onboard in the next few months.
In a letter to a passenger, BA blamed last month’s disruption on Covid-19, according to The Independent.
The newspaper said one passenger was told that their flight on April 24 was “cancelled as a result of the global pandemic caused by Covid-19”.
It said this was an “external factor, which is beyond the control of the airline and is an ‘extraordinary circumstance’.”
Therefore, the passenger was refused a refund.
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BA has since said it will contact the customer to offer compensation.
“We’re sorry that in this case we incorrectly denied a compensation claim and we’re contacting our customer to apologise and resolve the matter,” a spokesperson said.
But what should you do if an airline wrongly turns down your refund request after a cancelled flight? We explain.
What are my rights if my flight is cancelled?
You can’t get compensation if you were told about the flight cancellation 14 days before you were due to travel.
If you were told about the cancellation less than 14 days before the planned departure date, but you were booked onto a different flight, you might not get a pay out either.
For example, if you are told about the cancellation between 13 and seven days before your flight and are offered re-routing, allowing you to depart no more than two hours before and arrive less than four hours after your original flight, you won’t be compensated.
You also won’t get a refund if the flight is cancelled less than seven days before take off and you are offered re-routing, allowing you to depart no more than one hour before and reach final destination less than two hours after the scheduled time of arrival.
The other reason carriers can use to refuse a refund request is if the disruption was caused by “extraordinary circumstances”.
If none of those scenarios apply to you, you will be able to get a refund of up to £513, depending on the length of the journey.
Those figures are from the British Airways refund policy so you should check your carrier’s terms and conditions.
If you’re not happy with an airlines’ response to your compensation claim, you can take it to the Centre for Effective Dispute Resolution (CEDR).
It is approved by the Civil Aviation Authority to provide an independent resolution service for complaints about airlines.
You need to make the complaint within 12 months of the cancelled flight for it to be assessed.
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