auc report on passenger survey - Air Transport Users Council

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6 How did they deal with the mistake Made the change free of charge 44% Made the change for an administration fee 6% Made the change based on their normal reservation change fees Was given a full refund and asked to book again 12% 14% Was given a part refund and asked to book again 3% Was given no refund and had to book again at full cost 8% Other 9% Base: All respondents who have <strong>report</strong>ed a technical issue (180) – March 2010 Table 4 Source: Ipsos MORI Optional fees Key findings • 16% of respondents had mistakenly paid for a service they did not want. • Over half of those who had paid for an optional fee by mistake (53%) did not get a refund when they pointed it out to the airline. • Only about a third of respondents (37%) found optional fees clear and easy to understand during the booking process. A trend to emerge in the airline industry in the last few years has been the increase in the number of fees for services that were previously included in the fare, such as for checked-in baggage. The price increments for the extra services are displayed at different stages of the booking process. This practice may not necessarily be detrimental to consumer interests. It seems fair for passengers to pay for services they use. But we have concerns that consumers may not be aware of the price of optional services before starting the booking process. They therefore do not receive a total price until well into the process and, as a result, might not shop around to get the best deal. We also have concerns that some airlines do not make it clear that the fees for some services are optional.
7 We believe that significant numbers of passengers might be affected. However, we receive few complaints about optional fees. (This may be partly because the fees are for such small amounts that the impact on consumers is not sufficient to prompt them to contact us.) We therefore included questions about optional fees in our survey. The results appear to confirm our concerns. Half of passengers (47%) considered that optional fees were not presented in a clear and easy to understand manner during the booking process (table 5). This suggests that passengers may find it difficult to compare the optional fees between different airlines. When booking a flight, to what extent do you agree or disagree that you find any additional charges clear and easy to understand, before actually selecting your flights Strongly disagree 15% Don’t know Strongly agree 1% 9% 28% Tend to agree Tend to disagree 31% 15% Neither agree nor disagree Base: All respondents who are aware of additional charges (1,958) – March 2010 Table 5 Source: Ipsos MORI In addition, one in six (16%) consumers had mistakenly booked an optional service that they did not require (table 6). And over half of these had not been able to get their money back when they pointed this out to the airline. This includes most of the extra services that airlines tend to charge for. Travel insurance and baggage fees have in the past often been presented to passengers on an “opt-out” basis (though the Air Services Regulation – see overleaf – outlaws this practice). This may account for why 6% and 4% respectively of respondents paid for this by mistake. In addition, it is sometimes not clear from airline websites that seat allocation fees are avoidable - this might account for the 4% who had booked this by mistake.
Page 1 and 2: AUC REPORT ON PASSENGER SURVEY Intr
Page 3 and 4: 3 Using a scale of 0 to 10, where 0
Page 5: 5 The results of the survey suggest
Page 9: 9 Refund of taxes, fees and charges

auc report on passenger survey - Air Transport Users Council

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