TUI Airways has been accused of being the worst offender among UK-based airlines for failing to pay out flight delay compensation.
The carrier settled just 29% of claims without the need for a court case, according to research compiled by flight delay compensation delay firm Bott and Co.
The study showed budget carrier easyJet settled claims with passengers without the need for court proceedings on just 55% of occasions – while Virgin Atlantic paid out when first contacted in just 56% of cases.
Jet2.com, Thomas Cook Airlines and British Airways stood out as the best for paying claims without court proceedings needing to be issued.
Only one in ten cases had to go to court to get compensation from the three carriers.
Passengers delayed by over three hours or who have their flight cancelled can claim compensation of £110 to £530 under EU laws.
Bott and Co claimed that Tui was notorious for denying or ignoring pre-litigation claims.
Passengers had to go to court 70% of the time in order to get the compensation they were entitled to.
The firm found that in some cases, airlines were defending claims where others on the same flight had been paid previously, before court proceedings were necessary.
Coby Benson, flight delay solicitor at the law firm, said: “If the airlines were fully complying with the law then 100% of pay-outs would be without court proceedings.
“We understand that airlines need to look at claims on an individual basis; however what we’re seeing is airlines routinely defending claims for eligible flights, some where they’ve already paid dozens of others on the same flight.
“It is fundamentally unfair for airlines to continue to defend claims in the hope that passengers will just give up.”
At the same time a new report by the European Court of Auditors revealed that airlines in Europe often resort to telling passengers who complain that a delay is due to circumstances not under their control. But when this is properly challenged, airlines are then more likely to pay compensation.
A Tui spokesperson said: “We are sorry to hear that some customers have faced issues when submitting their flight delay claim.
“We remain committed to doing everything we can to minimise delays to customers when flying with us and we also continually review the process of how we handle flight delay claims.
“When customers are entitled to delayed compensation we believe that any money due to customers should go in its entirety to them, so we’d always suggest customers claim directly via us instead of using third party delay claim management companies, who routinely take a large percentage of the payment as commission.”