IAG had a €3.5bn liability for unflown flights – as the EU rejects requests to issue vouchers

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• Tony says:

  4 Apr4 April 10:57

  Personally I think vouchers should be the way forward for airlines as, otherwise they may well go bust, which is to nobody’s advantage.
  Airlines do not have unlimited cash and it is not the airlines fault they cannot fly.
  The days of cheap fares are coming to an end which is not a problem to the rich, wealthy and business types on here but is to people like me who are retired but love travel, taking 40 flights a year.
  Come on guys and girls understand the economics of the airlines and don’t forget those of us who are shareholders could loose our investments and certainly will not see any dividends for a good few years even if they survive.
  HFP people used to be polite and informative but many have become just as bolshy and aggressive as in so many social media sites.

  • Fenny says:

    4 Apr4 April 11:14

    Your shareholding is more important than others’ cash?

    • TGLoyalty says:

      4 Apr4 April 11:20

      Irony of a selfish person asking people to stop being selfish.

  • TGLoyalty says:

    4 Apr4 April 11:17

    If airlines want to protect their cash flow they need to offer the consumer an incentive.

    Why should I forgo my legal right for a cash refund, that I can use anywhere, if they can’t deliver what I bought (flight cancellation)? If they want to offer me a 15%-25% bonus for allowing them to keep my money then I’ll consider it, because it comes with risk that they won’t survive or that I won’t be able to use it effectively.

    • Anna says:

      4 Apr4 April 11:57

      +1. I would accept a voucher if it gave me what I’ve lost, i.e an F flight to a Zone 5 destination on a date of my choosing but this appears to be very far from guaranteed, in which case I want my money back.

      • Lady London says:

        4 Apr4 April 15:47

        +1. I would help them out if what they are offering is a fair option as compared to cash.

        But many, many people who thought they were travelling have now lost their job. Or they have people to support who have also lost their jobs and need their money back to live now.

        And BA, with access to usd9 billion cash, plus I assume, about 3 or 4 billion of money belonging to their customers, has deliberately tweaked their website so customers who have become vulnerable can’t request the refund they’re entitled to. And when that didn’t work properly the first time for some of their more resourceful customers who found a way to circumvent BA’s deliberate blockage of refunds on their website, BA did it again and made sure.

        Now people who paid BA for a service BA has not provided, but has kept their money for, are having to spend money and hours of time trying to reach BA by phone. BA knows it does not have the capacity to answer all calls and yet BA cynically is forcing people entitled to refunds to call them as the only method of teaching them.

        Many people who do finally get through are still reporting here that BA still tried to deny them a refund for the flight they had paid for but BA cancelled. As BA today told someone whose flight was weeks ago and cancelled, today BA told them it would take BA another 4 weeks to decide whether to refund their money for this flight, or not, and even if BA after 4 weeks did kindly decide to give the customer their money back for the flight BA did not run, this would take a further two weeks.

        Guys, if you get this rubbish from BA go straight to your cardco for s75 or chargeback.

    • Gary says:

      4 Apr4 April 12:27

      The incentive route should be looked at.
      I’ve cashed out £3k worth of refunds so far, will likely be £4k by next month.
      If I was offered Voucher+Avios or Voucher+% then BA would still have my money.

      • John says:

        4 Apr4 April 15:31

        Yep, and what’s interesting is that IAG sister company Aer Lingus has gone down that route, offering 10% bonus for those willing to take a voucher rather than insist on cash.

        Presumably the calculation at BA is they’re better off short/medium term not doing this, but I think it’s a mistake.

    • Vit says:

      4 Apr4 April 13:06

      Yes, yes and yes and those other comment above mine as well.

    • Callum says:

      5 Apr5 April 05:01

      The answer to that is very obvious – because they’re the victim of an enormous global pandemic and government travel bans.

      Now, I’d agree that that’s not good enough and I’d want my cash back too, but don’t keep pretending that everything’s fine and they just love screwing people over – it’s a literal fight for survival…

  • J says:

    4 Apr4 April 12:01

    Come on – if you’re buying shares you know full well their value may increase or decrease and there’s a risk you might lose everything. If you didn’t want to take risks you should have stuck it in NS&I. As a consumer if I am entitled to a full cash refund why on earth would I accept a voucher? It’s not as if BA are consistently treating customers with kindness, going above and beyond etc. No chance anyway of BA failing.

  • Thomas Howard says:

    4 Apr4 April 12:08

    As long as the aircraft and airports continue to exist it’s likely there will be air travel in the future. Why would non-shareholders (inc pension holders) worry about the value of your investments? This is the risk you were being rewarded for.

  • Lyn says:

    4 Apr4 April 17:21

    I think your words “people like me who are retired” are key here. A lot of other people are not in your situation and have suddenly lost their income, or fear losing it. They need their refunds from BA, and sooner rather than later.

  • JohnG says:

    4 Apr4 April 20:21

    I’m sorry Tony but I have no sympathy for BA in this case; nor do I accept the economics of your argument.
    I lack sympathy because has again demonstrated that it sees customers as a problem rather than people who paid for a service and who have their own needs; their immediate response was to intentionally be less helpful and make things harder for their customers. At the extreme end their will be people who have lost jobs etc who desperately need the money they are entitled to from BA which BA is going out of its way to deprive them of. Other firms in similar positions haven’t built a strategy on inconveniencing customers and have offered incentives to take vouchers because they understand that vouchers aren’t attractive to customers.

    BA isn’t going to go bust. If by some miracle it does then it won’t be because of the short term cash flow implications of giving people who are entitled to them refunds.

  • Charlieface says:

    4 Apr4 April 21:27

    Being brutally honest, I would like to feel really bad for airlines and their shareholders given the circumstances, but after years of airlines treating customers as cash cows I’m afraid I can’t. I’m remembering the times they put arcane rules in the tickets, they try to get out of paying compo claims using any trick in the book, they will happily put huge YQ fees on supposedly ‘free’ miles tickets. After all that I have half a hope they go bust and a better system rises up out of the ashes.

    • Callum says:

      5 Apr5 April 05:03

      I think the odds of vastly reduced competition resulting in consumer friendly practices thriving are pretty slim…

      • James says:

        5 Apr5 April 09:00

        Airlines need to adopt a more honest approach with customers – more sustainable pricing that doesn’t have a business model predicated on abusing a dominant position to borrow from everyone (tax authorities, future travellers, credit card companies who have advance-purchases points etc). HMG might not have a good track record in running a national airline but this reliance on unstructured funding and the constant pursuit of dividends and share buybacks adopted by public airlines doesn’t seem to fit well with the argument that the airlines are strategic national infrastructure. Any government bailout would be unconscionable without a significant haircut for equity holders, a change in management and a commitment to putting payment of taxes and investment ahead of shareholder returns. Aer Lingus, Level and Iberia should be left for others to deal with.

• Clive says:

  4 Apr4 April 11:04

  Rob do you please have a link to the EU ruling?

  • Rob says:

    4 Apr4 April 11:33

    No, because it’s not a ruling. To save the trouble of making a ruling, the Commissioner sent an email to some media outlets saying that the Commission wouldn’t budge on this. Makes the position clear without all the trouble of doing a legal ruling. The idea is that the Dutch now go away and leave her alone.

• Shelly says:

  4 Apr4 April 11:16

  Easyjet have removed the refund button online – requiring a telephone call but it’s impossible to call as the recorded message just tells you to call back and hangs the call.

  • Peter K says:

    4 Apr4 April 12:38

    Sometimes you need to be persistent. More than once recently I’ve had to keep dialing a call centre (not easyJet) repeatedly until I was put on hold rather than just cut off. Once I had to try for an hour to even be put on hold, then had to wait nearly 3hrs for the call to be answered. It was important so I took the hit on my time. We all have choices like this we need to make.

• Dee says:

  4 Apr4 April 11:31

  Malaysian Airlines and Qatar Airways have come to the rescue of stranded passengers in Auckland, then why couldn’t Emirates continue to fly, instead of cancelling people’s return flights with 48hours notice and reneging on their contract to fly people home? Not all flight cancellations can be blamed on Locked down countries!

  • Callum says:

    5 Apr5 April 05:04

    Where exactly do you expect them to fly to when their home airport is closed?

  • John says:

    5 Apr5 April 05:19

    Ask the sheikh of Dubai

• curious says:

  4 Apr4 April 13:34

  Rob, do you have a similar evaluation of Virgin? I’m sure a number of people here have bookings with them, so would be interested to see your take on how much cash / days they have left before becoming insolvent? Would you recommend we try to get our money and miles out of them ASAP?

• Martin says:

  4 Apr4 April 16:00

  James, you commented moving your Virgin miles to Hilton, can it be done online or only by calling or texting Virgin flying club? I couldn’t find on online method to do it myself, any advice appreciated, thank you.

  • Genghis says:

    4 Apr4 April 16:29

    Can’t be done online. Call or text or WhatsApp.

• Jo says:

  4 Apr4 April 17:15

  Moved Virgin Atlantic miles to Hilton a week ago – not in Hilton account. Does this means I missed the end of month transfer?

  • Nick_C says:

    4 Apr4 April 17:26

    You are not alone Jo. Many others have made the same comment in the daily “chat” threads [set up for off topic issues such as this one 😉 ]

• Kelly T says:

  5 Apr5 April 07:01

  I’ve been waiting since 12th of March to refund the taxes on a Amex voucher booking, they have refunded both Avios and voucher. I have tried calling them and spent over 6 hours on hold with them, I’ve logged two complaints and keep sending tweets via Twitter, they’ve won’t respond!
  Any ideas how to get my money back?

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