Airlines including British Airlines, easyJet and Ryanair have received a letter jointly penned by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) and the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) stressing their concerns over recent flight cancellations and reimbursements.
The industry has come under scrutiny for a raft of last-minute cancellations due to staff shortages, leaving holiday goers stranded.
Specifically, the two regulators noted additional measures that should be taken to ease the burden.
Those including flights which are currently selling more tickets than they can reasonably expect to supply, not satisfying obligations for re-routing and failing to give full and clear information to customers about their rights after cancellations.
Last month the CAA teamed up with the government to tell airlines to cancel flights early to avoid airport chaos this summer, while airports including Gatwick and Heathrow have set daily limits.
Shares in BA owner International Consolidated Airlines Group SA (LSE:IAG), easyJet PLC and Wizz Air Holdings PLC (AIM:WIZZ) were all down more than 2% on Thursday, while Ryanair Holdings PLC was only 0.3% lower.
Danni Hewson, a financial analyst at AJ Bell said that airlines in this situation must be transparent.
“It’s about transparency and boosting confidence, both things which are in airlines’ best interests.”
“The sector needs bookings to stay robust if it is to recover from its COVID crisis.”