Sue Davies, the head of consumer rights at consumer group Which?, has accused airlines of letting down their customers over the May half-term/Jubilee celebration weekend.
Davies was questioned in the House of Commons today by the business, energy and industrial strategy (BEIS) select committee and accused the airlines of “blatant flouting” of their obligations to customers and misleading behaviour in terms of providing compensation.
"The airlines and the government were encouraging people to travel again, and we think they've just underestimated the capacity issues, and the shortages both within the airlines and the airport services, including baggage handlers,” Davies said.
Richard Moriarty, the chief executive of the Civil Aviation Authority, told the BEIS committee that between 2% and 4% of UK flights were cancelled over the half-term/Jubilee celebration week. Historically, cancellations run at about 1% at that time of year.
Moriarty said the level of cancellations was “clearly distressing, and clearly unacceptable”.
David Burling, the chief executive officer of markets and airlines at TUI, said a number of factors contributed to the chaos at Britain’s airports.
Security, baggage loading plus the delivery of food, drink and fuel to aircraft all ran into problems, on top of which severe weather in Crete caused many of the packaged tour company’s flights to be stranded and replacement aircraft were in short supply because of the Champions League Final between Real Madrid and Liverpool.
TUI AG (LSE:TUI) revealed ahead of the grilling in the Commons that it had written to customers to apologise for the spate of delays and flight cancellations.
A spokesperson for the company said many customers who had seen their travel plans disrupted in May are rebooking, while cancellations are running at normal levels for the time of year.
“I would like to assure you that we have learned from what happened, and we’re working closely with our partners to address the issues that caused the delays and cancellations,” said Andrew Flintham, TUI’s managing director in the UK, in a letter sent to customers.