Airlines overbooking flights is a complicated – and to most of us inexplicable – fact of life but if they are going to engage in such a practice they have to make sure they look after their passengers.
However, an airline based in Zurich appears to have made a pig’s ear of it, leaving at least three Irish football fans seriously Swissed off.
Shelbourne FC had a bit of a European adventure this summer, one which climaxed in a two-legged tie against Zurich FC. But some of those following the footballing story were given a runaround by Swiss International Air Lines (commonly referred to as Swiss) after it overbooked a flight from Dublin to Zurich.
Up for grabs on this European night was a place in the third qualifying round of the Uefa Conference League so it was a big deal for the Dublin club and its fans, and the stakes made what transpired at a boarding gate that bit more upsetting for three supporters.
First up is Alan Bradshaw.
He says on July 25th the 8.40am Swiss flight from Dublin to Zurich was full of hopeful Shelbourne fans but the plane was “overbooked” and he became one of the unfortunates the airline refused to board.
“They were unable to accommodate us on another flight and we all ended up having to go home massively disappointed,” he says. “There was no proper management at the gate and it was a chaotic and distressing situation.”
Bradshaw says the airline could and should have sought volunteers to give up their seats but says they did not do so.
In fact, he writes, one passenger “wanted to give up his seat and the staff ignored him”.
So the long and the short of it is he went home. And his team lost 3-0.
He says he has received a payment of €85 despite the fact that he paid €408 for his ticket. He says there “was no explanation of how €85 had been calculated and attempts to inform [Swiss] that this is inadequate have so far garnered no response. I worry that the airline has no intention of properly refunding us and so far seems to be deliberately disavowing its statutory obligations”, he writes. “We are all quite angry and massively disappointed, as you can imagine. Please help us.”
Next up was Robbie McCann who was similarly denied boarding through no fault of his own. He has not received anything from the airline and has been told he may have to wait months before he hears from Swiss.
We also heard from Colin Nolan, another Shelbourne fan left at the gate who has been trying to get his refund sorted.
His issue is somewhat complicated as he booked the flight through Skycanner and paid €304.
The airline said he had to go back to the third party to get his money back, which seems fair and he did that only to be told “they cannot see any evidence that my flight was oversold and that I didn’t board, even though the lady at the check-in desk took our passports to leave this note on our file that we didn’t board. I’ve called Swiss several times to update this and each time I’m being told to fill out the online complaints form as they couldn’t update it on their end. I’ve filled out this form on July 26th and am still yet to receive any correspondence. I’ve tried calling back and messaging them on Twitter and am just being told to wait as there’s nothing else they can do”.
Nolan says he has also “applied for compensation for my flight, accommodation and match ticket and haven’t heard anything back about that either. I can’t even describe how frustrated I was that I didn’t get to go on the trip purely due to the greed of Swiss and now having such difficulties trying to get my refund is only making things worse”.
We can understand his anger but – in defence of Swiss – “greed” might be a bit harsh.
Overbooking happens all the time, although it is more common in the US than it is here, and on many levels it makes sense.
The airline industry has a huge volume of data to show that a proportion of passengers will not turn up for any given flight despite having paid for a ticket. They might not travel because of illness, changed plans, bad traffic or countless other reasons.
Using that knowledge, an airline can be sure that about 5 per cent of those due to travel will not board so instead of selling 200 tickets on a 200-seat plane, they can sell 210 tickets.
Doing so means that those last few seats can be sold twice and the seats sold at the last minute always selling at a higher price and maximising the airline’s revenue.
But it is not just airlines that can benefit from the practice and the folk who have to travel at the last minute can, generally speaking, buy tickets on technically full planes while fewer planes depart with empty seats so the carbon emissions per passenger are reduced.
All of that is well and good unless you happen to have a ticket on an overbooked flight and you want to see your team play in a crunch European tie. Then it is a whole other ballgame. And it is something Swiss might have anticipated given what must have seemed like an unusually high volume of ticket sales for a midweek flight from Dublin to Zurich.
But at least the law on overbooking is very clear.
If a flight is overbooked an airline must first call for volunteers to give up their seats in exchange for agreed benefits. Those who do so are also entitled to a choice of a full refund on their ticket within seven days or a rerouting to their final destination at the earliest opportunity or a rerouting at a later date at the passenger’s convenience.
We were not at the boarding gate but we would have thought that not all the people on the plane were flying out to see Shels play. Some of the passengers might not have had as urgent a need to get to Zurich as others, and they might have been happy to fly out a day later if the price was right but according to our multiple eyewitness accounts they were not given that option.
Under the rules, if there are not enough volunteers, the airline can legally deny boarding to passengers against their will but they must be compensated and offered the appropriate assistance as well as refunding the cost of the ticket within seven days or the rerouting options already outlined.
The EU-wide law makes it clear that a refund is a full refund and says the compensation amount a passenger is entitled to depends on the distance of the flight. Zurich is just under 1,300km from Dublin so the compensation is €250, although our readers can make the case that they are entitled to twice that amount because they had return flights and were unable to board the homeward-bound flight either because of the overbooking.
In any event, our first reader who spent €407 is legally entitled to that money back plus the €250, a total of €612, which is a whole lot more than the €85 he has been offered by the airline.
The absence of communication also seems problematic but based on our interactions with Swiss in connection with this story, it is not all that surprising.
When we contacted the company with our readers’ stories we received a response the likes of which we have never seen.
It said it was “happy to provide more details on the specific customer cases. However, in accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), we require the consent of the affected passengers for this. The form that needs to be submitted to us for this purpose is attached. Additionally, we require a copy of the passengers’ ID.”
Now we have been doing this for a long, long time and have dealt with big banks, big tech, big retailers and big airlines and this is the first time any company anywhere has simply refused to look into the specifics of a reader’s concerns without completing a detailed form and sending photo ID to the company.
We made this point to the airline but its spokeswoman wasn’t for budging and said that nothing would be done until the forms were filled in and the photo ID was supplied.
So we went back to our readers and, at the time of writing, Alan and Colin had agreed to the airline’s terms and filled in the form and sent them a photograph of his passport.
We then heard back from Swiss.
“We sincerely apologise for the inconvenience caused to [Alan Bradshaw] by the overbooking of his flight. We can well understand the disappointment that Mr Bradshaw experienced when we were unable to transport him as planned. We fully understand his displeasure.
“We have now investigated the matter thoroughly and have consulted with both our customer service department and our station in Dublin.
“We can unfortunately confirm that Mr Bradshaw was incorrectly refunded only a portion of the ticket. We deeply regret this error. Our refund department is currently processing the full refund of this ticket. In addition, we would like to ask Mr Bradshaw to apply for a possible compensation according to the EU261 regulation directly via our website.”
The spokeswoman said Swiss “cannot confirm from our investigations that passengers were not asked to voluntarily withdraw from the overbooked flight. This is a standard procedure in the event of an overbooked flight. Nor can we confirm that passengers volunteered to allow others to be transported. Consultation with our station also revealed that we did not have the opportunity to rebook Mr Bradshaw on an alternative flight. When our handling partner Swissport wanted to do this, Mr Bradshaw had already left the gate.
“In this context we would also like to mention that Swiss does not offer a first class on the route Dublin-Zurich. What is most likely referred to by Mr Bradshaw, is the business class. However, due to safety, weight and balance reasons but as well as product requirements it is not allowed to use the middle seat in business class for additional passengers.”
She said the examination of the Chris Nolan case had not yet been completed.
