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Britain’s competition regulator is investigating whether British Airways and Ryanair violated consumer law by failing to offer customers refunds for flights they could not legally take due to coronavirus restrictions.
The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said that during times of lockdown, when non-essential travel was illegal for people in one or more parts of the UK, the two airlines refused to reimburse the customers, instead offering vouchers or the possibility of re-letting.
The regulator said he was concerned the two companies broke consumer law and unfairly left customers out of pocket when they failed to return their money to people.
The CMA’s investigation only concerns flights that were not canceled, when it indicates that British Airways offered people vouchers or a new booking, while Ryanair offered the option to change the booking.
Ryanair told the CMA that it has reimbursed a small number of people after reviewing their specific cases.
The CMA opened execution cases to both airlines and wrote to them detailing its concerns.
The move comes after the CMA opened an investigation into the airline industry in December 2020 after reports that consumers were denied reimbursement for flights they were not legally able to take.
As part of its investigation, the CMA is seeking to resolve customer issues with businesses, which may include seeking refunds or some other type of repair.
Andrea Coscelli, Chief Executive Officer of CMA, said: While we understand that airlines have had a hard time during the pandemic, people should not be unfairly left behind for following the law.
Customers booked these flights in good faith and were legally unable to take them due to circumstances beyond their control. We believe these people should have been offered a refund.
The AMC does not have the power to impose fines on companies, but can work with companies to obtain redress for clients, and can also sue companies.
Ryanair said it handled refund requests on a case-by-case basis and made refunds in justified cases.
The airline said: As of June 2020 all of our customers also have the option to book their flights without paying any change fees and millions of our UK customers have taken advantage of this option.
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A BA spokesperson said the airline issued more than 3 million refunds during the pandemic and criticized government policies and travel regulations, adding: We continue to offer very flexible booking policies while enforcing a significantly reduced schedule due to government imposed travel restrictions, and we acted legally at all times.
It is unbelievable that the government is seeking to further punish an industry that is on its knees, after significantly banning airlines from flying for over a year now. Any action taken against our industry will only serve to destabilize it, with potential consequences for jobs, businesses, connectivity and the UK economy.
An earlier CMA investigation into the vacation home pandemic led several companies to change their refund policies, after initially refusing to reimburse guests whose stays were canceled during the spring 2020 lockdown and offering them coupons instead.
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