A row has broken out between Ryanair and the aviation regulator after the airline’s chief executive Michael O’Leary dubbed as "absurd" legal obligations European airlines have to passengers affected by cancelled flights.
Mr O’Leary said Ryanair would welcome any court action taken by the Commission for Aviation Regulation (CAR) aimed at making it cover the expenses of passengers stranded in airports across Europe for up to a week after much of the continent’s airspace was closed last Thursday.
Under EU regulations, airlines have to offer passengers affected by flight cancellations a full refund or a rerouting on the next available flight. The rules make it explicitly clear that airlines are legally obliged to provide accommodation and refreshment for passengers who chose to be re-routed.
However Mr O’Leary said this afternoon Ryanair would not be covering the accommodation or food costs of passengers. “While we will consider all passenger requests for reimbursement of reasonable receipted expenses over the past week, any such reimbursement will be limited - as it is in the case of rail, coach and ferry passengers - to the original air fare paid by each passenger.”
He said there was “no legislation designed that says any airline getting a fare of €30 should be reimbursing passengers many thousands of euro for hotel accommodation. It’s absurd”.
Mr O’Leary added that he was “fairly sure” the regulator would take a court action against the airline. "We will look forward to seeing this in court because frankly I think this is a great opportunity for the airlines to expose this nonsense.”
Mr O’Leary called for legislation to put planes on an equal footing with coaches, train and ferry operators, with the carrier only liable for the original cost of a fare.
The commission insisted the airline had “no wiggle room” and had to abide by European rules that cover passengers' costs in the event of cancellations. It urged people left out of pocket to pursue claims.
Commission spokeswoman Patricia Barton said, while the regulator had enormous sympathy for all airlines affected by the crisis, the obligations they had to their passengers were very clear. “There is no ambiguity or no wiggle room here. The law is the law,” she said.
“We will have to fight this battle, and we are prepared for the fight,” she said. “But we are going to have to see what happens. At the moment Ryanair have said they are not going to abide by the regulation, but they still have not infringed them. Saying they are going to do something is not the same as doing it.”
She outlined the next steps for passengers affected by flight cancellations. They should send the airlines they had been booked with copies of their receipts and allow them ten working days to respond. If passengers fail to obtain satisfaction from the airline, they are advised to contact the commission for assistance, Ms Barton said.
If there is an infringement of regulation 261, the commission issues the airline with a directive to which it is obliged to respond. “If an airline fails to comply with a directive then it is committing a criminal offence,” Ms Barton said. The courts can impose a fine of between €5,000 and €150,000 for each individual breach of a directive.
The commission can only act on behalf of passengers who had flights booked out of Ireland so if someone was stranded in Malaga, for example, they will have to contact the Spanish aviation regulator.
Ms Barton said people could either contact the regulators in the country where their flight was cancelled or route their complaint through the Irish regulator. She stressed that all regulators would be adopting the same approach in the current situation. “All of the member states have an obligation to enforce these regulations,” she said.
The Government’s emergency task force said today it met officials from CAR and the National Consumer Agency over concerns about passengers’ claims.
The taskforce warned that if people are unhappy with compensation, state bodies will fight their cases. The regulator will deal with all complaints following flight cancellations, it said.
Ryanair carries on average 220,000 passengers on flights across Europe every day, but Mr O’Leary, who met authorities in Dublin, said he was not able to estimate how many of his customers had been left stranded. The airline has cancelled all flights between Ireland and the UK until Friday to divert planes to cover more in-demand airports across Europe.
"I don't have a problem with everything being grounded for a day or two but there should have been a much faster response by the governments and transport ministers and by the regulators," he told RTE's News At One.
“This is one of these issues we want addressed - why exactly are the airlines expected to be reimbursing people’s hotels, meals and everything else when the governments are the ones who made a balls of this?”
