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Four out of every five customers of Ryanair requested the refund of cancelled flights from the pandemic coronavirus have not yet been compensated by the irish airline low cost , despite the fact that european legislation sets a period of seven days. So collect today a survey by the consumers association of british Which?, it also exposes the complaints of passengers about their difficulties to ask for a full refund of the cancelled flight, as they argue that companies prefer to issue bonds valid for twelve months, or changes of travel.

Which? probed 1.632 people of the United Kingdom that they had “agreed or solicited” between mid-march and early may for a refund, after Ryanair cancelled their flight as a result of this health crisis.

The 84% of that total indicated that it has not yet received the money, compared to 5% that has been compensated within the seven days set by the European Union (EU). In a statement sent to Which?, a spokesman for Ryanair stressed that your customers “will receive the refund in due time, by the end of this unprecedented crisis” . “The time to process refunds of money -he explained – is greater because they have to process 10,000 times the volume of a usual cancellations and that we have fewer available workers for social distancing measures”.

The group chief executive of Ryanair, Michael O’leary, had already warned earlier that the company will need “several months” to “eliminate the huge backlog” that has caused the cancellation of thousands of flights.

Differences between airlines.

Compared to other european airlines, the study noted that the 63% of customers from the uk easyJet , the main rival of Ryanair in the sector of low-cost flights, have not received a refund in the same period, compared to 23% of British Airways and the 19% of Jet2.com.

“We have listened to thousands of frustrated passengers tell us that this is proving almost impossible to get the refunds they are entitled to legally, which some have been waiting for months without having seen even a penny”, he denounced the editor of the magazine “Which? Travel”, Rory Boland.

he Said that “some airlines” are “acting better than others,” to compensate its passengers, suggesting that, although “the industry is passing through a difficult time,” the “retention” of your money is “simply unacceptable”.

Boland asked the british Government and the regulatory authorities of the United Kingdom, as the Civil Authority of Aviation (CAA, in English), which take letters in the matter. “The CAA should require urgently to airlines who violate the law, blatantly accountable and the Government should detail how it will help the sector if the airlines can no longer reimburse their customers without the fear of sinking”, argues Boland.

At the beginning of this month, the CAA already opened an investigation into the way the airlines are handling the issue of refunds in the United Kingdom. The executive director of the CAA, Richard Moriarty, then asked the Transport Committee of the Commons more powers to carry out this task.