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Wizz Air has paid out more than £1mn in extra compensation owed to customers after the UK’s aviation regulator ordered the airline to revamp the way it deals with complaints.
The Civil Aviation Authority last July forced Wizz to review a swath of compensation claims after investigating “a high volume of complaints about the airline”, particularly during a period of major travel disruption in 2022.
The CAA said it had “significant concerns” that the airline had not paid passengers what they were owed and had “failed to meet its passenger rights obligations”.
As a result, on Tuesday the regulator announced that London-listed Wizz had paid out an extra £1.24mn in compensation to 6,000 customers, after it re-examined more than 25,000 claims involving UK flights from March 2022.
The regulator cannot at present fine airlines, and has long called for tougher powers.
Yet the enforcement action against Wizz represented an unprecedented intervention, marking the first time it has made such an order for a carrier to review complaints.
The claims that the CAA ordered Wizz to review relate to the airline’s requirement to provide alternative flights, as well as care and assistance such as covering hotel costs.
“While we welcome the steps taken by Wizz Air after falling short in its treatment of disrupted passengers, airlines should routinely look after passengers and uphold their rights when flights are delayed and cancelled,” said Paul Smith, consumer director at the CAA.
Wizz said it had “fully complied” with the CAA’s requests and has invested £90mn in improving its operations.
Like many other airlines, Wizz suffered a string of delays and cancellations in 2022 as the aviation industry struggled to cope with a sudden surge in passenger numbers after pandemic-era travel restrictions were lifted.
Yet the handling of the disruption snowballed into a reputational problem for Wizz, which was named “the UK’s worst airline” by consumer group Which? last year.
The airline said its operations and performance improved in 2023, and that 90 per cent of customer refunds were now processed within five days.
Among its operational improvements, Wizz has added spare aircraft to give it greater resilience during disruption, and built increased time into crew rosters and between flights to make schedules more robust.
“Like all airlines in Europe, we faced unprecedented operating challenges in the summer of 2022 but the improvements we put in place have led to a better customer experience and our performance in 2023 was among the strongest in the industry,” said Wizz Air UK managing director Marion Geoffroy.
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