British Airways is being fined US$1,1m (R21,4m) by the US Department of Transportation over its failure to provide timely refunds during the COVID pandemic.
According to TTG Media, on Thursday, June 1, the regulator’s Office of Aviation Consumer Protection served a legal document, claiming it had received more than 1 200 customer complaints about BA from March-November 2020. It said customers could not get through to BA customer service agents for several months as the airline failed to maintain adequate functionality of its customer service phone lines.
The document stated: “There was also no way to submit a refund request through the carrier’s website during this period. From March to November 2020, British Airways had misleading information on its website which led consumers to inadvertently request travel vouchers instead of refunds.” It said BA call centres did not return to full capacity until August 2020 and slammed the carrier’s use of social media in responding to refund requests, which it believes many consumers were not aware of.
The department said BA was being credited $550 000 (R10,7m) towards the fine because it had paid over $40m (R778,5m) in refunds to customers with non-refundable tickets in 2020 and 2021.
It said the fine was a strong deterrent to future similar unlawful practices by BA and other airlines.
In response, a BA spokesperson said: “During this period, we acted lawfully at all times and offered customers the flexibility of rebooking travel on different dates, or claiming a refund if their flights were cancelled. To date, we have issued more than five million refunds since the start of the pandemic.”
