British Airways will pay half of a US$1.1mln (£0.88mln) fine to the US government after failing to issue refunds for flights cancelled due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Some 1,200 complaints have been made to the US Transportation Department since March 2020 over BA’s failure to reimburse passengers travelling to and from America.
“British Airways failed to maintain adequate functionality of its customer service phone lines,” the department said, despite customers having been directed toward these.
“There was also no way to submit a refund request through the carrier’s website during this period,” officials added.
Given payments of over US$40mln to reimburse non-refundable tickets, the airline was credited US$550,000 toward the fine.
International Consolidated Airlines Group SA (LSE:IAG)-owned BA responded that it had “acted lawfully at all times”, with over 5mln refunds paid since the pandemic began.
"We're very sorry that at the height of the unprecedented pandemic - when we were unfortunately forced to cancel thousands of flights and close some call centres due to government restrictions - our customers experienced slightly longer wait times to reach customer service teams," BA commented.
FTSE 100-listed IAG posted its first quarterly profit since the pandemic began in early May, marking a continued recovery across the sector since flights were grounded three years ago.