How long is it taking to get flight compensation payments from Qatar Airways?

[jay]

Qatar Airways may well be winning awards from Skytrax, but why does no-one take them up on their appalling back office processing and payments of compensation under UK261. Their strategy appears to be kick the can down the road, to wear down the passenger to give up on their claim and just keep rolling out canned responses to online chats… how many times can they use:

– Kindly note that such cases are handled by our customer care team, subject to first come first served. It may take a while as it’s also subject to investigation and different approvals. We do appreciate your patience.

– Kindly note that you case is still under investigation.

– Apologize for the inconvenience caused

– CRM cases handle by our customer relation team. We appreciate your patience and apologies for the wait time. We only can send reminder email to reach to passenger on priority.

Has anyone managed to get the entitled UK261 compensation from QR without taking court action? Insights, thoughts and stories ?

[JDB]

They are pretty terrible about paying any claims. They will likely take weeks/months and may then reject your claim or ask a question to add further delay. QR doesn’t participate in ADR so after a couple of months you may wish to consider escalation to MCOL preceded by a Letter before Claim. As issuing a claim involves paying a fee and time to do properly, I would only do this if you are very certain of your claim and have all the details set out in a clear and logical way with any relevant supporting evidence cross referenced to the facts.

[Matt]

Not of any help to you I’m afraid, but I made a claim earlier this year for a 4 hour delay due to an aircraft fault, and was paid the compensation due very quickly. I had been expecting to get nowhere, or at least nowhere fast, but it was all sorted fairly efficiently. Certainly better than my last experience with BA (which took a CEDR claim to resolve a straightforward claim)

[jay]

Matt wrote:

Not of any help to you I’m afraid, but I made a claim earlier this year for a 4 hour delay due to an aircraft fault, and was paid the compensation due very quickly. I had been expecting to get nowhere, or at least nowhere fast, but it was all sorted fairly efficiently. Certainly better than my last experience with BA (which took a CEDR claim to resolve a straightforward claim)

Thanks Matt – was it paid within 8 weeks? Assume you used the only form on QR website?

[jay]

Matt wrote:

Not of any help to you I’m afraid, but I made a claim earlier this year for a 4 hour delay due to an aircraft fault, and was paid the compensation due very quickly. I had been expecting to get nowhere, or at least nowhere fast, but it was all sorted fairly efficiently. Certainly better than my last experience with BA (which took a CEDR claim to resolve a straightforward claim)

Thanks JDB – been 8 weeks so far and just submitted a CAA Claim, which although they have no authority to make them pay will give them a go. At least then, if need to claim through MCOL can show all avenues were attempted (on top of emails, letters to their London office, online chats via QR site, FB Messenger chats, emails to QR Executives and Gary Kershaw, QR UK Country Manager. I have come to the conclusion QR don’t give a **** about their passengers 🙁

The amazing thing is that bloggers laud QR but don’t dig beneath the surface to discuss back office issues that are all part of the QR experience… we all know why !!

[JDB]

@jay – it sounds as though you have taken more than enough steps to cover yourself to make a claim and there is no absolute obligation in the Civil Procedure Rules anyway. The CAA unfortunately moves at a glacial pace and doesn’t really have jurisdiction over foreign airlines beyond cajoling.

Assuming you are willing to follow through, a Letter before Claim is really the next step.

I think it’s a fairly widespread view that QR is good in the air and in Doha transit but the rest is pretty rubbish and their IT might even be worse than BA’s. Most non-European airlines absolutely hate having EC261 imposed on them and treat it with varying degrees of contempt.

[jay]

JDB wrote:

@jay – it sounds as though you have taken more than enough steps to cover yourself to make a claim and there is no absolute obligation in the Civil Procedure Rules anyway. The CAA unfortunately moves at a glacial pace and doesn’t really have jurisdiction over foreign airlines beyond cajoling.

Assuming you are willing to follow through, a Letter before Claim is really the next step.

I think it’s a fairly widespread view that QR is good in the air and in Doha transit but the rest is pretty rubbish and their IT might even be worse than BA’s. Most non-European airlines absolutely hate having EC261 imposed on them and treat it with varying degrees of contempt.

@JDB – thanks for the response. It is more a matter of principle and not so much about recovering £520. Interesting, looking at the CAA Passenger Complaints Data, QR only had 23 complaints opened by CAA in regard UK261 in Q1 ’24 which I find astonishingly low and assume that most people give in and don’t pursue a claim. Will give CAA 8 weeks and then issue LBA.

Interestingly a EC261 claim with Air France a few years ago was paid within 11 days of the claim submission.