Airlines Face Legal Action as COVID-Era Refunds Remain Unpaid

"We’ve been waiting for 3 years for our refund, for a trip canceled due to Covid. I call every week, and I’m told over and over again that my refund is coming," complains Julie B. on social media. Jacky, a customer of the TAP Air Portugal company, "doesn’t know what to do" to get back nearly 2,100 euros. Yet the airlines had assured in the spring of 2020 that the tickets canceled due to the health crisis would be refunded. Sixteen European companies renewed this commitment to refund all their passengers within a week in October 2021, recalls BFM TV.

Globally, nearly $35 billion in tickets sold in the second quarter of 2020 should be refunded. But having been severely affected by the crisis, the airlines were more concerned with a resumption of activities than with refunding canceled tickets. "A matter of survival," explained the International Air Transport Association (IATA). Yet, according to European Regulation 261/2004, customers whose flight has been canceled must "have the possibility of being refunded for their ticket or of obtaining re-routing under satisfactory conditions".

Despite the full recovery of global air traffic and the tens of billions of euros in public aid they have received, the airlines are reluctant to refund the affected customers. A bad faith that leads the many concerned customers to take legal action to obtain satisfaction. In France, lawyer Joyce Pitcher, who represents 7,561 clients, estimates at nearly 6 million euros the funds claimed by the latter from the airlines. The disputes concern in particular the major companies such as Royal Air Maroc, Thai Airways, Alitalia (now called ITA), Norwegian, TAP, Tunisair, Air Madagascar, Air Algérie, or even British Airways which had promised a full refund in 7 days, specifies the lawyer.

Joyce Pitcher also denounces the multiple obstacles and maneuvers of certain companies to avoid or delay refunds. "Some are still contesting having to refund these canceled flights, like the Royal Air Maroc company. Others do not execute the decisions rendered by the courts or do not respect the agreements concluded between lawyers to end the proceedings. This is the case, among others, of the Thai Airways company, which is still leaving nearly 400 files without refund, despite the decisions rendered against it, or ITA or Norwegian which, between them, have left nearly 500,000 passengers without refund," she explains.

To date, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGAC) has already imposed sanctions of 473,500 euros on 10 companies for "failures in the right to refund and the right to information observed on the occasion of flights canceled due to the Covid-19 pandemic," informs Me Pitcher, who announces "additional procedures before the Ministry of Transport in order to obtain convictions for fines".