My parents postponed their Flybe flight due to illness – can they be reimbursed?

Simon Calder answers your questions on the coronavirus’s widespread impact on holiday plans

The airline went out of business this week (Getty)

Q My parents booked a flight in June 2019 from Glasgow to Southampton with Flybe, total cost £500. My mum took ill and had to cancel. Flybe held the full cost of the flight in credit to allow them to rebook at a later date. Which they did for end of March this year. That won’t now happen.

The total cost this time was just £120 return. So they have lost these flights and the £380 held in credit for them. The original payment last year was made by credit card. Can they reclaim from the credit-card provider?

David McG

A What bad luck. I fear that most or all of their money will be lost.

After Flybe went out of business in the early hours of 5 March, most of us with forward bookings on the airline had a straightforward path to getting a full refund. My flight cost more than £100, and I paid by credit card, and therefore it falls within the provisions of Section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act. This legislation makes the credit-card issuer jointly liable for the provision of a service.

Since Flybe is no longer around, the airline is unable to deliver my flight from Birmingham to Edinburgh. Your parents’ trip from Glasgow to Southampton is also off. But there is a big difference: mine is a simple forward booking; theirs is a complicated story where liability can be disputed.

Flybe had a generous policy that allowed your parents a credit note for the flights after the unfortunate illness. Many airlines have a similar easement; while a full cash refund is far preferable for the customer, carriers take the view that they can reasonably insist that they retain the payment within the business since they are doing the buyer a favour by allowing flexibility.

But the £500 that your parents had on the airline’s books was not the result of Flybe failing to provide the original service. I imagine the flights went ahead, just without your parents on board. The credit-card firm can argue its obligation does not extend to private financial arrangements made after the original flights had departed.

So give it a go, but don’t be surprised if your parents’ request is swiftly declined. They can appeal to the Financial Ombudsman Service, but again I see little prospect of success. Sorry I can’t be more optimistic.

Q I am booked with Singapore Airlines to Australia on 24 March. The airline has booked the first leg, Birmingham to Dusseldorf with Flybe. Are Singapore Airlines obliged to find us an alternative flight or do we have to?

Jane K

A Thank goodness you have over a fortnight in which to sort out your trip. I met a couple at Birmingham airport on the morning of Flybe’s collapse who had a very similar itinerary (except they were travelling via Amsterdam). Even though they had allowed hours, neither Singapore Airlines nor their agent was able to sort out a different itinerary before their plans evaporated and they spent a fortune on new flights.

If you have booked through a travel agent, then your contract is with the intermediary and not the airline.

The onus is on the travel agent to find you a suitable alternative – and many excellent human agents have been doing just that for their clients since Flybe failed, delving through their systems to find flights that most closely match the original itinerary.

Some online travel agents, though, rely on some egregious terms to get them out of actually doing any proper agency work. They may simply say: “We’ll give you a refund when we’re good and ready. Oh, and by the way, when you clicked to accept our conditions you awarded us the right to withhold part of the refund.”

I hope you either have a good agent or that you booked direct. In the latter case, a conversation with Singapore Airlines will doubtless find a settlement. I imagine it might involve you travelling to Heathrow instead, probably at your expense, but that will get you a nonstop flight to Singapore – which, trust me, is worth at least £100 more than changing planes in Dusseldorf.

An intended journey to Copenhagen has been complicated by coronavirus (iStock)

Q I was all set for a trip to Copenhagen soon, but received an email from easyJet cancelling my flight without any explanation of why it was doing this. It offered a rescheduling or a refund. I contacted my Copenhagen hotel, but it said it would neither amend my booking to fit with a rescheduled flight nor refund me.

I contacted my holiday insurance company and it said I should claim against easyJet for the £510, but easyJet’s website says it is only liable up to the point of arrival, not for hotels, etc.

Can you please offer any advice as to where I go from here?

Brian Mathieson

A All the big airlines have cut flights because of the coronavirus crisis. Initially the capacity reductions were to Asian destinations where demand has slumped, but now many other lightly booked services are being axed. British Airways, easyJet and Ryanair are all cancelling hundreds of departures in Europe.

Most flights are on routes where two or more flights can easily be combined, to minimise passenger inconvenience (and revenue losses). Evidently yours is more serious, requiring you to change your plans by a day.

Fortunately, European air passengers’ rights rules are on your side. As easyJet knows, when it cancels a flight it must provide an alternative as close to the original as possible. The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) says that if a cancelling airline cannot offer a different flight on the same day, then it must buy you a ticket on another carrier.

The email you got from easyJet neglected to mention this option explicitly, offering only the choice between the refund and the chance to “transfer your flight free of charge”.

The airline has decided to interpret the rules differently. A spokesperson said: “Customers on cancelled flights have been given details of their alternative options via email which includes a link to the webpage outlining entitlements including rerouting.

“Here, we explain that if we can’t get customers to their destination within 24 hours on an easyJet flight they can switch onto another airline and we will reimburse them.”

I suggest that you rely on the CAA guidelines instead, and if necessary book a flight yourself and then claim it back from easyJet.

There are advantages to waiting till the last moment for a Perth flight (Getty/iStock)

Q I have a daughter living in Perth, Western Australia. My husband and I wish to travel there towards the end of April and stay for the month of May. When we visit we stay with her, so we need only book our flights. In light of Covid-19, should we delay booking the flights to see what course the virus takes over the coming weeks? The downside to that, as I understand it, is that the cost of flights increases nearer to departure date.

Name supplied

A I certainly recommend waiting for a good few weeks, probably until the day before you want to leave. There are several advantages to this strategy.

First, while air fares generally rise sharply in the last few days before departure, that is happening much less at the moment due to “soft demand”. When bookings are thin on the ground, the airlines’ preferred strategy of ramping up prices in the last few days before take-off is not easy to sustain. Tomorrow I could fly from London to Oslo and back, for example, for £44 return. And the UK-Australia market has typically been immune to steep fare rises immediately before departure.

Second, you are going only to Perth and seem to have no wish for a break along the way. You want a straightforward commodity (a return trip from London to Perth) rather than a complex travel product (eg a different city stopover in either direction). So you can happily wait until 24 hours ahead and see what is around. A glimpse at tomorrow shows some silly prices, with a cluster of £700 return deals on Malaysia Airlines, Singapore Airlines and Thai.

The Qantas nonstop, which may appeal because it avoids any stopover, is priced at more than twice as much. But at this stage a connection in Kuala Lumpur, Singapore or Bangkok looks reasonable and low risk. While international airports are, relatively speaking, hazardous because of the vast range of potential infections brought in from around the world, scrupulous personal hygiene can help minimise the threat.

Third, no one knows how widely the coronavirus will spread in the next two months. I can see no pressing reason to make a commitment on travel well in advance, and that means it is probably worth postponing a decision. Finally, the later you leave a decision, the less likely you are to find that the flight is subsequently cancelled due to lack of demand. A Wizz Air trip that I had for April (which was booked well ahead) has just been grounded, and I am now having to find some kind of replacement.

So I would provisionally ask your family in Australia to get the barbecue prepared, but wait for a signal about when exactly you will touch down.

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