auc report on passenger survey - Air Transport Users Council

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For a number of years, we have called for government to introduce a financial
protection scheme against the failure of scheduled airlines similar to the ATOL
scheme for tour operators. We suggested that consumers’ general lack of
understanding of financial protection had made passengers increasingly vulnerable to
the impact of an airline’s failure. The results of the survey appear to bear out our
concerns. But when asked directly about protection, respondents said that they
thought it was important that they were protected and many said that they were
prepared to pay extra for it.
We think this is therefore yet more evidence of a need for some sort of universal
protection scheme against the failure of scheduled airlines. Protection should be
automatic and passengers should not be relied on to seek out their own cover through
their credit card or travel insurance. We plan to use this evidence as part of our
ongoing efforts to get government to mandate such a scheme.
Booking errors
Key findings
Mistake made by passenger
• Almost one in five respondents (17%) had made a mistake when booking a
ticket online.
• More than half of respondents (58%) who had made a mistake were out of
pocket to some extent with 9% having to buy a new ticket at full cost to them.
• The majority of respondents (65%) who had made a mistake found the process
of notifying an airline of their mistake to be either fairly, or very, easy.
Technical issue with airline reservation system
• 13% of respondents had experienced a technical issue when booking a ticket.
• Almost a third of respondents (29%) who had experienced a technical issue
were out of pocket to some extent even though it was not their fault, with 8%
having to buy a new ticket at full cost to them.
• 29% of those who had experienced a technical issue did not notify the airline
of the problem even though they were left out of pocket.
We receive a large number of complaints from passengers who have had problems
making a reservation. And often these passengers can be significantly out of pocket.
(They might have had to pay an administration fee to amend a reservation or even a
buy a new ticket. Or a glitch in the system might have meant the passenger had made
a duplicate booking.)