Wizz Air passengers left with ruined trip and £1,200 costs due to missing form
Wizz Air passengers who found themselves without a flight home and with their holiday plans in tatters have issued a warning to future passengers.
The couple endured the "worst experience we ever faced with an airline" when they were denied boarding on May 1 on a night flight from Marrakech in Morocco to Italy's capital, Rome.
They turned up at the airport ready to board the low-cost Hungarian airline, only to be told that the plane was overbooked by 15 customers.
"We had flight tickets and when we presented ourselves to the check-in desk, people at the check in informed us that we may not be able to board on this flight, and so we waited for one hour and half with the other denied passengers, noting that the people doing the check-in were not even Wizz Air employees. There was no one from Wizzair at the check-in desk," Alan Smith* told the Mirror.
Do you have a travel horror story? Email [email protected]
"We had to insist very fiercely with the check-in people to be able to take a picture of our flight tickets with no allocated seat on this flight. Wizz Air didn’t provide any sort of assistance to these customers. Some customers were in tears, some were lost and disconcerted. Some customers have been denied boarding successively for the same flight on different days."
Alan had forked out more than €400 (£337) for the flights. As they couldn't get to Rome, they lost out on a night's stay in a hotel there and had to book a place to stay in Marrakech. The following day the couple boarded a British Airways flight back to the UK, having had to cancel the Italy leg of their trip.
"All in all, this cost us more than EUR 1,500," Alan said, describing the Wizz Air experience as "disappointing". "Wizz Air never reached out spontaneously to acknowledge the denied boarding or to apologise," he added. After submitting a compensation claim and receiving a response from the airline, Alan said he kept receiving automatic failure-to-deliver emails from Wizz Air's customer service as its inbox appeared to be full.
"The last update is that Wizz Air customer service rejected our claim due to the fact that we are unable to provide a 'denied boarding form' that we were never provided with," he said. "We will never fly again with this company."
The Mirror contacted Wizz Air regarding the customer's complaints and was told "the issue stemmed from an administrative error. The team on the ground did not provide the correct form needed to process compensation. As a result, the case wasn’t properly recorded in Wizz Air’s system, which prevented customer service agents from issuing a refund.
"Wizz Air fully acknowledges the stress and inconvenience this caused the customer and sincerely apologises. Full compensation is now being processed, along with an official letter of apology from the airline. Like many airlines, Wizz Air sometimes overbooks flights, and in rare cases, this can lead to a passenger being denied boarding. In such situations, we always provide rebooking options and compensation. “In this instance, the customer was regretfully not given the necessary form to log their case in our system, which caused an error during the compensation process. We have since contacted the customer to offer our sincere apologies and to issue the full compensation they are entitled to. We have since provided additional training to our colleagues, and we are committed to ensuring a situation like this does not happen again.”
Sign up to the Mirror Travel newsletter for a
You can get a selection of the most interesting, important and fun travel stories sent to your inbox every week by subscribing to the Mirror Travel newsletter. It's completely free and takes minutes to do.
If you are bumped without your agreement, you are entitled to compensation, as long as you checked-in for your flight on time. No matter whether you volunteered or were forced to be bumped, your airline must also let you choose between two options:
Your airline must offer you an alternative flight. It’s up to you whether to fly as soon as possible, or at a later date that suits you. Airlines often refer to this as being ‘rerouted’. If you want to fly as soon as possible, your airline must also provide care and assistance while you wait for the flight.
This includes food and drink, means of communication, accommodation and transport to the accommodation. The airline must provide you with these items until it is able to fly you to your destination, no matter how long the delay lasts or what has caused it.
If you don’t want to fly, you can get your money back instead. You’ll get a refund for all parts of the ticket you haven’t used. For instance, if you have booked a return flight and you are bumped from the outbound leg, you can get the full cost of the return ticket back from your airline. The level of compensation depends on the length of your flight and the timings of the alternative flight you are offered. Visit the Civil Aviation Authority website for more information.
*Alan's name has been changed.
Daily Mirror
