Complaints and enquiries - Air Transport Users Council

4
REVIEW OF THE YEAR
Complaints and enquiries
In 2008/09, the AUC handled 12,307
complaints and enquiries compared to
11,077 the year before. Of these, 5953
were in writing and 6354 were by
telephone.
We accept that the number of
passengers who complain to us is tiny
compared to overall passenger numbers.
But we think the complaints we receive
give an indication of the complaints
received by airlines’ customer relations
teams. And they often give us an inside
track into the policy of an airline towards a
particular issue.
Details of written complaints and
telephone enquiries to the AUC are set
out in the tables overleaf.
A passenger had two watches
stolen from his luggage on a
trip back from the US. He
claimed for the cost of the
watches from the airline,
enclosing copies of the receipts.
However, the airline said that
under its terms and conditions it
was not liable for valuable
items and referred him to his
travel insurance. In the
meantime the airline lost the
receipts for the watches because
of an “administrative error”, so
the passenger could not claim
from his insurers. The
passenger wrote to us and we
managed to persuade the airline
to compensate the passenger for
the cost of the lost watches.
In addition, we had 113,000 hits on the
advice pages on our website, compared
to 160,000 the year before. We cannot be
sure of the reason for such a decrease but we suspect it may be a result of an
increasing number of alternative websites available that provide advice on air
travel, many of which base their information on the advice pages on the AUC
website. We are not concerned by the fall in the number of hits; so long as the
information is getting out to passengers and it is correct and up to date, it
does not matter where it comes from.