Major EU airlines agree to refund passengers after pandemic flight cancellations

By Marine Strauss

BRUSSELS, Sept 30 (Reuters) - A group of European airlines
agreed on Thursday to refund passengers whose flights were
cancelled during the COVID-19 pandemic, and committed to provide
better information on passengers' rights in future.

After talks with the European Commission, 16 airlines agreed
to clear refund backlogs, to better inform travellers when
companies would cancel flights and to offer vouchers only when
passengers chose them.

The airlines included Air France-KLM, British Airways,
Easyjet, Lufthansa, Ryanair, TAP, and Wizz Air among others.

"In the early phase of the pandemic, some airlines pushed
vouchers on passengers," Didier Reynders, European commissioner
for justice, said in a statement. "They were acting against EU
consumer protection rules. That was unacceptable," he said.

National authorities in individual EU states are responsible
for the enforcement of EU consumer protection laws. The EU law,
the Consumer Protection Cooperation Regulation, has created a
network of state enforcers to coordinate on such issues.

The EU Commission said this was the biggest Consumer
Protection Cooperation action in the CPC network's history and
the first action that was based on an alert from the Commission.

"Airlines have breached European consumer rights on a
massive scale during the pandemic," Monique Goyens, general
director of the European Consumer Organisation CEUC, which led
the complaint to the EU in July 2020, said in an emailed
statement.

"It's time for airlines to clean up their act ... Many
consumers across Europe are still waiting for their money back,
for flights cancelled during the first lockdowns in 2020."

EU transport chief Adina Valean also welcomed the agreement,
adding that it will restore trust between passengers and
airlines. "The recovery of the air transport sector depends on
this," she said.
(Reporting by Marine Strauss @StraussMarine; Editing by Kirsten
Donovan)