Wizz Air complaints: Pensioners whose flight was cancelled while they were sitting on the plane face fight for refund

The pensioner couple hadn’t had a holiday break for three years, so when friends offered them the chance to spend a couple of weeks at a holiday home near the Austrian capital they jumped at the chance and were really looking forward to it.

In May 2022 they booked a trip to Vienna from Gatwick with low-cost carrier Wizz Air but after sitting on the runway for half an hour fight staff told them to disembark as the flight had been cancelled due to a last-minute technical problem.

NOW READ: Scams that Streetwise has tackled

Back in the airport foyer Jane noticed a text on her phone saying the flight had been postponed to the following day. Then Stuart received a couple of emails confirming staff would be handing out vouchers for food and drinks and overnight accommodation would be provided, but it all came to nothing.

Stuart, 69, said: ‘Our dream trip became an expensive disaster. We were literally abandoned in departures after angry passenger exchanges with staff revealed no-one knew what they were doing or what was going on. We felt there was really no information and no-one from the airline had a clue.

‘After a six-hour nightmare wait we had to fork out for taxis and an overnight hotel stay ending up losing two days of our holiday. We made it to Heathrow and booked another flight costing us £534 extra in total.’

On returning from their holiday retired engineer Stuart tried to get compensation from the budget airline, but the company repeatedly ignored their claim to cover their out-of-pocket expenses.

‘There was no apology or alternative offered,’ he said. ‘Wizz Air told us it would refund us but when we tried to get confirmation we were just sent around in circles.

‘We couldn’t believe the hassle we were put through just trying to get answers. There’s no complaints procedure and it was like trying to talk to a brick wall.

‘The total lack of communication was so frustrating. Jane first tried phoning but repeatedly kept waiting and cut off. Emails were routinely ignored and if we did get an acknowledgement it was just evasive waffle. We were stonewalled and left in the dark not knowing where to turn apart from going to court.

‘We were eventually told it was their policy just to credit on our account despite the repeated requests for a refund.’

Not knowing which way to turn, the couple, of Bognor Regis, contacted Streetwise for help and advice. To avoid going through all the hassle of court action he had registered his claim with the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) regulator’s disputes team, but that had also run into a wall of delay and obscurity.

The CAA pointed us to a previous statement they’d circulated in December raising concerns with Wizz Air for its ‘unacceptable’ behaviour over its passenger complaints and refunds procedures. It was by far and away the most complained-about UK-based budget airline.

They questioned the time the airline had been taking to process claims received directly from passengers and the large number of County Court judgements against the airline remaining unpaid.

They were also concerned about the number of flight delays which were around an eyewatering 70 higher than comparable airlines.

Commenting on the CAA’s quarterly passenger complaints data from ADR sources and the passenger and advice team, Anna Bowles, the head of the CAA’s head of policy and enforcement, didn’t mince her words when she slammed the airline for failing to deal with passenger complaints promptly.

She said: ‘Passengers have every right to expect their complaints and claims to be resolved quickly and efficiently and to be treated fairly by airlines. The volume and complaints received by ADR and the disputes team in respect of Wizz Air is far higher than those seen for other airlines.

‘This alongside the delays in processing and paying claims and the large number of County Court Judgements made against Wizz Air, has raised significant concerns for the CAA. We will continue to monitor the situation. Where we have evidence that an airline is letting passenger down we won’t hesitate to take further action where required.’

Commendably, the Hungarian-owned airline acknowledged and expressed regret with the refund delays and undertook to clear the backlog of passenger claims by the end of the year.

However, background checks by Streetwise in March revealed there were still over 900 County Court Judgements outstanding against the airline.

Wizz Air explained in common with all the UK civil aviation sector they’d been struggling with a number of challenging issues following the Covid pandemic travel ban including retaining and re-engaging experienced flight and ground staff.

We got on to Wizz Air to enquire about the outstanding processing of the Colliers’ claim and clarification of the crediting passengers’ accounts policy.

An explanation wasn’t forthcoming, but to their surprise three days later they received an apology and the claimed £534 turned up in their bank account.

‘We are over the moon and just can’t thank Streetwise enough,’ said Jane. ‘We were getting precisely nowhere with it until you helped us to resolve what turned out to be a frustrating and exasperating 10-month saga with them in just a few days.

‘We’d flown with Wizz Air before without any problems. Despite what we’ve been through we are prepared to accept they are struggling to get their house in order and wouldn’t completely rule out giving them a second chance.’