Aviation watchdog recovers €579,000 for passengers

The Commission for Aviation Regulation (CAR) last year recovered €579,000 in refunds for disgruntled air passengers, mainly over cancelled flights.

The regulator’s 2021 annual report shows that last year it received 1,479 complaints about airlines, down 67 per cent on the record-breaking 4,543 complaints from customers in 2020 over cancellations due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

The €579,000 recovered in funds by the CAR Air Passenger Rights team is less than half the €1.25 million recovered in 2020.

The report also said that in 2021 CAR administered 2,246 claims by customers of collapsed travel firms who received €2.2 million in refunds from insolvency protection bonds held by the commission, the Travellers’ Protection Fund and refund credit notes.

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The bulk of the complaints last year related to the collapse of Joe Walsh Pilgrim tours on April 27th, 2021, where CAR received 2,836 claims out of the 2,970 claims made concerning four company collapses.

The report noted that the collapse of four travel firms during 2021 had demonstrated “the continuing difficulties faced by the industry during the year. We took on additional staff to manage such a large volume of claims”.

Ryanair accounted for 44 per cent of complaints, with Aer Lingus accounting for 26 per cent. The remaining 30 per cent of complaints were accounted for by 52 other airlines.

The number of complaints against Ryanair came to 647 with 69 per cent or 427 upheld, 192 not sustained and 28 investigations ongoing.

The report shows that 387 complaints were made against Aer Lingus with 65 per cent upheld and 132 not. There are 12 ongoing complaints against Aer Lingus being investigated.

The report noted that as travel restrictions were lifted in 2021 “we began to see an increase in cases where compensation may be payable to the passengers in the absence of an extraordinary circumstance”.

The report said that in 2021 the Air Passenger Rights team received the highest volume of queries and complaints in the first quarter of the year “as passengers who had hoped to travel towards the end of 2020 encountered difficulties obtaining refunds for cancelled flights”.

The report went on to say that “with restrictions ongoing and uncertainty about travel restrictions passenger numbers stayed low and the volume of complaints and queries returned to pre-pandemic levels as a result”.

The figures show that 562 complaints were received in January and February of 2021 alone.

Last year, the regulator recorded a surplus of €451,000. The commission’s costs totalled €3.87 million and its net income amounted to €4.32 million.