Complaints and enquiries - Air Transport Users Council
Complaints and enquiries - Air Transport Users Council
Complaints and enquiries - Air Transport Users Council
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14<br />
Besides, we suggested that it was often difficult<br />
to tell where the fault lay. Many of the problems<br />
where it appeared that there had been an error<br />
could have been a result of a glitch somewhere<br />
in the airline’s reservation system. Passengers<br />
might therefore have been penalised when the<br />
error was not their fault.<br />
Our report aimed to both encourage<br />
passengers to notify an airline of a problem as<br />
soon as they could (by following instructions on<br />
the airline’s website if available) <strong>and</strong> to<br />
persuade airlines to change their policies<br />
towards passengers who encountered<br />
problems when booking on the internet. We<br />
sent a copy of the report, with an<br />
accompanying letter, to the chief executives of eight major UK carriers asking<br />
them to review their policies. We asked them to consider putting into place<br />
policies that gave more consideration to passengers who had difficulties<br />
booking online. We recommended they introduce a “24-hour rule” (see below)<br />
whereby passengers could cancel bookings within 24 hours of making the<br />
reservation.<br />
Ale<br />
We underst<strong>and</strong> that the<br />
A 24-hour rule<br />
We underst<strong>and</strong> that the majority of airline tickets are non-refundable<br />
<strong>and</strong> accept that airlines should be able to charge to rectify booking<br />
errors under some circumstances; for example, if the error only comes<br />
to light very close to departure. That is why we believe that an airline<br />
rule giving passengers the chance to make changes or claim a refund<br />
(even if subject to a small administration fee) within 24 hours of making<br />
a booking would provide passengers with at least some protection<br />
against being out of pocket. At least one airline already has such a term<br />
in its conditions.<br />
We received a positive response from most airlines – some airlines even<br />
introduced a 24-hour rule into their terms <strong>and</strong> conditions as a result of our<br />
report. Others took on board our views <strong>and</strong> said they would put in place<br />
internal policies along the lines of a 24-hour rule. They would also be<br />
generally more sympathetic to their customers. We will be keeping an eye on<br />
this issue <strong>and</strong> plan more work on this issue in the year to come. But we hope<br />
that such problems will diminish as passengers become more accustomed to<br />
internet shopping <strong>and</strong> as the online booking systems become more reliable.