The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) has taken serious enforcement action against Wizz Air over the carrier’s serial failure to honour the legal rights of passengers suffering delayed or cancelled flights.
The CAA has secured legal undertakings from the budget carrier to honour its commitments in future, to automatically review all passenger welfare claims received over the last 16 months and to re-open passenger welfare claims going back six years.
The aviation regulator said it acted after receiving hundreds of complaints, the most it had ever received about a single airline, and finding multiple examples of non-payment of legitimate claims by Wizz Air.
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The action the CAA has taken in requiring the airline to go back and examine claims over years is understood to be unprecedented.
Wizz Air had failed to meet its obligations to provide alternative flights when services were delayed or cancelled, failed to meet its obligations to provide care and assistance to passengers, significantly delayed dealing with claims and wrongly rejected claims.
The carrier will have to review all welfare claims made by passengers on flights to or from the UK on or after March 18, 2022.
Wizz Air representatives signed undertakings to meet all the CAA’s requirements on Wednesday (July 26).
The carrier made several commitments regarding its handling of claims for costs incurred following flight disruption last summer.
It aims to resolve all customer claims within 45 days. The airline will also make 120% credit refunds within 24 hours and process 100% ticket refunds within seven working days.
The airline has also paid more than 70% of County Court judgements. Another 10% are in progress and the remaining 20% are being identified and processed.
UK managing director Marion Geoffroy said: “Last summer, like all airlines in Europe, Wizz Air faced unprecedented operating challenges, driven mostly by the external environment, including ATC disruptions, airport constraints and staff shortages across the whole supply chain. As a result, we were unable to meet our own high standards of service.
“Flights were too often late or cancelled, disruption management overwhelmed our internal and external resources, and claims took too long to process and pay.
“We have learned from this experience and have taken significant steps to make our operation more robust and customer-centric.”
She added: ”We expect this summer to be challenging for air traffic control, which will impact airlines. While we cannot anticipate every disruption, we have invested over £90 million to prepare for increased air traffic. We are confident that we have taken the right steps to better support passengers this summer season.
“We know that we need to rebuild trust, and we want to show our customers how serious we are about making improvements for the future. Helping our customers reach their destination is our number one priority and we will continue to invest in our service to ensure they get there on time.”
Next step court action
The CAA said it would monitor the airline’s behaviour over the coming months to check that it is complying. The regulator made clear the next step would be to take court action against Wizz.
The airline is required to update the CAA on the number of passengers it owes refunds and compensation and the amounts owed.
An industry source said: “This sends a really clear message to airlines that the CAA will step in.”
The enforcement action follows months of negotiations between the CAA and Wizz Air.
CAA joint-interim chief executive Paul Smith said: “This enforcement action sends a clear message that airlines must meet their obligations to passengers when they cancel or delay a flight. We will not hesitate to step in if we believe that airlines are not consistently doing this.
“Passengers have every right to expect their complaints and claims to be resolved quickly and efficiently and to be treated fairly by airlines, in line with regulations. We made it clear to Wizz Air last year that the way it was treating passengers was unacceptable.
“We will continue to watch the situation closely to check that passengers receive what they are owed and that Wizz Air’s policies have improved, so that consumers have a better experience if things go wrong.”
‘Abysmal record’
Which? Travel editor Rory Boland said: “Wizz Air has an abysmal record on meeting its legal obligations under consumer law, racking up millions in pounds in county court judgments after continually failing to appropriately reroute passengers from delayed or cancelled flights and then refusing to reimburse those passengers for its failure.
“It is right the CAA is finally stepping in but it desperately needs to be given stronger powers to faster hold airlines to account.
“The CAA should be ready to swiftly take Wizz Air to court if it continues to break the law.
“But this latest development clearly exposes the current weaknesses in the CAA’s powers – that they are reliant on undertakings from Wizz Air to comply with their enforcement. The regulator urgently needs new powers in the King’s Speech so that the threat of fines forces airlines into faster action.”
The CAA issued a statement in December expressing “significant concerns” over the high volumes of Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) complaints about Wizz and delays in the airline “paying passengers what they are owed”.
It noted then that Wizz Air “ranked as clearly the worst airline for complaints” in the third quarter of 2022.
Other carriers had less than half as many complaints, and many significantly less, according to the regulator.
The CAA also questioned the time Wizz Air was taking to process claims received direct from passengers, and the large number of County Court Judgements (CCJs) “which have been found against Wizz Air and remain unpaid”.
The regulator noted Wizz “expressed regret over these problems” and “has committed to the CAA that it will clear the backlogs of claims and outstanding ADR payments”.
A Wizz spokesperson told Travel Weekly: “The majority of CCJs against Wizz Air have now been paid. Another 10% are in progress and the remaining 20% are being identified and processed.”
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