The holiday season is in full swing – but if the booked flight to the holiday paradise is delayed or even canceled completely, the anticipation of the beach quickly turns into frustration with complaints. The passenger rights portal Flightright has examined which airlines passengers have the most trouble with. Lufthansa is at the forefront. According to Flightradar, 20 percent of all aircraft in Europe took off too late in the first half of 2023.
While German airlines were still relatively punctual, they were particularly negative when it came to flight cancellations: The Lufthansa Group is the “cancellation leader”, three of its subsidiaries occupy inglorious places among the top 5 airlines with the most flight cancellations: Lufthansa CityLine is in 2nd place and had 1111 flight cancellations, which corresponds to 2.6 percent of all departures. Eurowings came in third place with 1,388 cancellations (2.4 percent) and Lufthansa in fifth place (2,844 cancellations, 1.9 percent).
They are surpassed by British Airways, which canceled more flights than any other airline in Europe. It canceled 3986 flights, which corresponds to 3.3 percent of all departures. The British airline also tops the list when it comes to delays of 15 minutes or more: 37 percent of all flights departed too late. At Lufthansa, 29 percent of all machines were delayed, at the subsidiary CityLine it was almost 20 percent. Eurowings aircraft, on the other hand, mostly departed on time, with only 2.5 percent being late.
So-called low-cost airlines are doing better than expected: When it comes to flight cancellations, EasyJet only had 4411 cancellations, which is 1.81 percent of all departures. At Ryanair, there were 2,516 cancellations (0.55 percent). When it comes to delays, Ryanair is also okay (17 percent), while EasyJet planes often arrived later than planned (32.3 percent).
Flightright’s Claudia Brosche points out that some of the cancellations are due to strikes at German airports, “in particular a large number of Eurowings flights”. However, it is also clear that “internal airline processes” are not yet running as desired. “The fact that there are still many problems with German airlines and that things are not going as smoothly as the airlines promise is an open secret,” says Brosche. During the pandemic, airlines have had to lay off staff en masse, which they are now having to replenish. There were also delivery problems with aircraft from Boeing and Airbus.
Airlines also acted differently when it came to refunds in the event of complaints. As with delays and cancellations, Flightright can only speak for the compensation that the airlines paid to the portal. Flightright sues them for the passengers and usually asks for a commission. British Airways, Vueling and Turkish Airlines, for example, often refused payments. With airlines such as EasyJet, Condor, Lufthansa and Ryanair, it takes a relatively long time for money to be repaid. Things are going well at Eurowings, AirFrance, KLM and Tap, among others.
According to its own statements, Flightright enforced “a low double-digit million amount in compensation payments” in the first half of 2023. A mid double-digit million amount is still open.
Conclusion: Even in this holiday season, passengers have to be prepared for the fact that not everything goes as planned – and should then demand compensation. But you can also do that yourself. This is how they avoid the fee for companies like Flightright.
This article first appeared on Capital.de.
