Flight delay payouts: Top airlines including Tui and easyJet criticised for ‘stalling tactics'

‘It is fundamentally unfair for airlines to continue to defend claims in the hope that passengers will just give up,’ said a flight delay solicitor

Time sensitive: passengers may get payouts after delays of three hours or more (Simon Calder)

Britain’s biggest holiday company, Tui, has been accused of unfairly rejecting flight delay compensation claims – with easyJet and VIrgin Atlantic also criticised for “stalling tactics”.

Passengers whose flights on EU airlines arrive three hours late or more are entitled to a cash payout. The amount ranges from a minimum of €250 (£220) for the shortest hops to €600 (£530) for a long-haul service delayed by four hours or more.

The only defence for airlines is “extraordinary circumstances” – such as adverse weather, security alerts or air-traffic control strikes. The European Court of Justice ruled that technical faults do not constitute an excuse.

Airlines encourage passengers to claim direct, rather than going through claims-handling firms, which typically take one third of any compensation paid.

But one such company, Bott and Co, says that Tui refused to settle seven out of 10 legitimate claims until court proceedings were issued.

The legal firm says that for every 100 claims it successfully makes for delays on Tui, only 29 are settled before the court process begins.

Coby Benson, flight delay solicitor at Bott and Co, said: “If the airlines were fully complying with the law then 100 per cent of pay-outs would be without court proceedings.

“We understand that airlines need to look at claims on an individual basis; however what we’re seeing is airlines routinely defending claims for eligible flights, some where they’ve already paid dozens of others on the same flight.

“It is fundamentally unfair for airlines to continue to defend claims in the hope that passengers will just give up.”

One passenger, Tara Bentley, told The Independent of the response from Tui after a delay of over three hours: “They put it down to unruly passengers, which was obviously not the case.

“I replied to their email with a very detailed response. As I didn’t receive a response I went into the Tui shop where they asked me to resend the email.

“After just a few hours I received an email saying they have investigated again and the complaint would not be upheld.”

A Tui spokesperson said: “We are sorry to hear that some customers have faced issues when submitting their flight delay claim.

“We remain committed to doing everything we can to minimise delays to customers when flying with us and we also continually review the process of how we handle flight delay claims.

“When customers are entitled to delayed compensation we believe that any money due to customers should go in its entirety to them, so we’d always suggest customers claim directly via us instead of using third party delay claim management companies, who routinely take a large percentage of the payment as commission.”

The airline with the second-highest proportion of claims that are settled only after court proceedings begin is easyJet – the biggest budget carrier in Britain.

According to Bott and Co, the budget airline initially rejected 45 per cent of claims that were subsequently paid after legal proceedings began.

A spokesperson for easyJet said: “We want to make it as easy as possible for our passengers to claim and the majority of passenger claims are resolved directly with us, without any need to involve the courts.

“We always recommend that passengers claim directly with us rather than sacrificing a significant portion of their compensation to other organisations unnecessarily.”

Virgin Atlantic performed third worst, according to Bott and Co, with only 44 per cent of claims settled without recourse to the law.

A spokesperson for the airline said: “We strongly question the validity of this data from Bott & Co. In fact, our data suggests that under 1 per cent of all EU261 claims made by customers in 2018 have involved legal proceedings.

"We never want to disappoint our customers but on the rare occasion when there is a long delay or cancellation, we encourage customers to contact us directly. We will respond as quickly as possible and on average, pay all eligible claims 14 days after receipt.

The European Court of Auditors says that flight compensation rules are poorly observed. National enforcement bodies – such as the Civil Aviation Authority in the UK – reported that three out of five claims that were initially rejected by airlines were later held to be legitimate.

“This means that carriers can compensate one passenger and not another on the same flight,” its report says.

Bott and Co praised Thomas Cook Airlines, British Airways and Jet2 for settling nine out of 10 claims without court proceedings being issued.