Covid-19 travel and flights cancellations: passenger rights and companies behaviour

Dear friends, these are times of total uncertainty, and as I also wrote in the previous article,I have no desire to talk about travel at this time, because I can not in any way look to the future, at least not in terms of travel.

However, I have always written on this blog also to raise awareness of their rights and duties, to become more responsible and aware travelers,who also know what their rights are and make sure that they are respected, if necessary.

I have therefore decided to observe the behaviour of companies in the world of tourism, at this difficult time, and to observe whether the rights of travellers, even in the face of the moment of emergency never seen before, are respected and what are the strategies adopted on the subject of cancellations of travel and flights.

What are the rights of travellers in relation to the situation of coronavirus?

Under the law DL March 2, 2020 No. 9, “I think it’s a good thing that we’re going to be able to do that,” he said. entry restrictions, they are entitled to the refund of the title of transport (air, rail, maritime) purchased in Italy, whether purchased in the agency or directly on the channels of companies offering tourist services.

Questo rimborso può essere effettuato sotto forma di rimborso monetario oppure dell’emissione di un voucher della validità di 1 anno.

The subsequent decree of 17 March, then, specifies that these measures also apply to residence contracts, i.e. hotel bookings (DECRETO-LEGGE 17 March 2020, No 18 – Article 88).

So if you have a reservation in progress, as we are all currently in quarantine until at least 3 April, and many foreign countries have already closed their borders after the WHO declared the global pandemic on 11 March, in theory we are all entitled to a refund.

But how are things actually going?

How tourism companies are behaving

If you have a reservation made directly with a tourist property, for example a hotel, you must contact it directly to ask for a refund, always taking into account the provisions of the local governments that you can monitor on the website viaggiaresicuri.it

If you have a reservation on a portal such as Airbnb, Vrbo (formerly HomeAway) or Booking, you should know that they have adopted different policies.

Airbnb rimborsa in automatico senza penali tutti i soggiorni con checkin entro il 14 aprile 31 maggio (e quindi ha rimborsato anche me che avevo il checkin a Buenos Aires il 14 di aprile).

Vrbo,on the other hand, does not offer any “automatic” refunds to customers, but recommends hosts and guests who have to cancel for reasons of greater force to agree on the free cancellation (at the expense of the hosts) or on the granting of a voucher. On the other hand, it has made it clear that it will refund the cash portion of the Cost of Service. Read Vrbo’s condition here >>

Booking.com and Expedia have also changed cancellation terms to help customers retrieve or change their bookings.

Airlines and coronavirus

Airlines are facing a disaster, leaving most of their fleet on the ground for at least the next two months, but most are proving to be up to the task, at least the European ones I usually follow, behaving like this:

• providing clear and transparent communication to its customers

• “The European Regulation think it’s a good idea to have a refund of the cost of the ticket if the airline cancels your flight, even if it’s due to extraordinary circumstances that are not dependent on the airline itself,” he said.

One example is Ryanair, which with this post by CEO Michael O’Leary has really impressed me, not only for the clarity and foresight of the content, but also because the airline is offering a refund to all customers.

EasyJet and Alitalia are also refunding their customers in the face of the cancellation of flights, and above all they offer a clear and complete communication on their website, of the options to which travellers are entitled, such as this one on the Alitalia website:

Instead, there are other companies that first try to deny the refund, offering the customer only the two possibilities or voucher to use in the future or free rebooking on other dates.

Questo è l’atteggiamento in questo momento di Lufthansa, British Airways ed AirFrance; anche Iberia offre un voucher valido fino al 31 marzo 2021, senza menzionare la possibilità di rimborso monetario.

• Lufthansa information page coronavirus
• British Airways information page coronavirus
• AirFrance information page coronavirus
• Iberia informazioni per richiedere il voucher

Despite this, however, British Airways reiterates that it still offers monetary refund to customers who do not want the voucher, and so does Lufthansa,as can be seen both from their official websites and from the responses to customers on social channels (clicked to enlarge the images):

Unfortunately, the same thing cannot be said, instead of AirFrance, the only one that is adopting a completely unfavorable attitude towards its customers, and appears unyielding in not granting any kind of monetary repayment. It only offers the voucher of the validity of one year, with the possibility of obtaining a refund of the sum at the end of that period, in case of in-use of the same. On their website I do not see the word “refund” written anywhere, but only “voucher” or “date change”:

I have an ongoing booking with AirFrance, for Argentina, and I have already received notice of the flight cancellation by the airline. I was not offered any refund, only the voucher. I also tried within my booking on the site to do a refund request simulation by selecting the item “Flight canceled by the airline” as causal, instead of “I give up traveling and I accept the voucher because of the coronavirus emergency” (what they are telling everyone to do) and what happens is that they only refund me the airport fees, instead of the whole ticket.

What are the rights of civil aviation passengers in Europe

In the light of all this so far, it seems to me useful to remind everyone that the rights of civil aviation passengers in Europe are protected by a Civil aviation regulations in Europe and a 2004 law that stipulates that the passenger of air flights operating in the European Community is entitled to the following:

On 18 March 2020, the European Commission further clarified in an official statement that the airline cannot force the customer to accept the voucher, in case it itself cancelled the flight, and must always cancel the flight. offer the choice to the customer between the voucher and the monetary refund:

Read the entire official document of the European Commission here, which shows without a shadow of a doubt that airlines such as AirFrance, which at this time require the traveler to accept the voucher without any alternative, are breaking the law.

At this time then I find myself with an AirFrance flight booked to travel to Argentina, of which I can get a monetary refund (perhaps) only in one year. In the meantime, these gentlemen are holding my money hostage.

Does that sound right? it looks like a robbery to me.

What if you think your rights as a passenger have not been respected?

If you intend to assert your rights, the first thing to do is toand file an official complaint with the company in question, and then if you don’t get an answer – or if you get an unsatisfactory response for you – within 6 weeks, I advise you to contact the European Consumer Centre, which offers a free consultancy and brokerage service, or to make a complaint directly to Enac, if it is a European airline, as I also explained in this article.

Also remember that if you have a flight with a U.S. airline you are equally entitled to a refund in case of flight cancellation, read here.

Who will ultimately pay for the damages?

Certainly tourism companies such as airlines and all operators small and large are facing an unprecedented emergency, because states are closing borders and people, because of lockdown and quarantine, have stopped moving and moving.

but the question is, does this authorize you to break the law?

Because it is in fact that nobody’s fault with what’s going on, neither the companies nor the travelers,we’re all in the same boat.

And if companies are at risk of bankruptcy, it is equally true that private citizens can also find themselves having economic problems, perhaps because they own businesses or because they have lost their jobs, and they have the right to have their money back.

So getting the money back from the airlines that are supposed to comply with European legislation would certainly help these people, as well as a legitimate law enshrined in law.

I do not know how it will turn out, not everyone seems to me to be keeping calm and reasoning lucidly and – I repeat – with foresight,looking to the future and not only to save the salvageable in the present.

And I am not talking about small tourist companies doing what they can, I am talking about the aviation giants, the flag carriers like AirFrance who will certainly benefit from state aid to recover from the crisis.

For me who have been traveling with this company for 14 years, and I have always advertised it and recommended it to everyone because I considered it the best in Europe, I confess that it is a great bitterness.

Since this crisis began, they have done nothing but communicate ambiguously and misleadingly on social media, failing to give answers to a lot of people asking for explanations, or always repeating the usual pappardella of apologies. An unspeakable behavior on the part of an airline like this, surely my esteem have lost it, always if it cares, to have the esteem of its customers.

In conclusione, io penso che, come dice il Ceo della Ryanair, “prima o poi questa emergenza e questa crisi passeranno “. Vedremo poi i clienti da chi torneranno, se da quelli che pur nell’emergenza si sono comportati al meglio, con trasparenza e lungimiranza (e badate bene che nessuna di queste aziende fa beneficienza, quindi se hanno agito così sicuramente lo hanno fatto perchè pensano che sia la soluzione migliore anche per il loro tornaconto personale, non perchè sono stupidi.. sono tutt’altro che stupidi), o da quelli che hanno cercato soltanto di fare il proprio interesse, danneggiando i loro clienti?

To posterity, the harsh sentence, friends.