EasyJet cancells flight and charges £10 fee for providing proof !!!

Supermodel Kate Moss was escorted off an easyJet flight at London Luton airport on Sunday by police because she had allegedly become disruptive.The 41-year-old was coming home from a holiday in Turkey but after her plane landed around 4.15pm she was taken off the flight by police officers.A spokesman for Bedfordshire police confirmed that they had been called to help with a “disruptive” passenger at Luton airport. “The passenger had been reported as being disruptive on the flight,” he said, but no arrest seemingly was made.

EasyJet  is a British low-cost airline carrier based at London Luton Airport.It is the largest airline of the United Kingdom, by number of passengers carried, operating domestic and international scheduled services on over 700 routes in 32 countries.

One problem with low cost airlines is the apprehension of cancellation of flight that could lead to chaotic situation for the traveller.  Back home, with private airlines steeply hiking last-minute cancellation and rescheduling charges, passengers should now pray that their flights are not delayed, forcing them to miss connecting flights. For if this happens - even if the airline is at fault for the delay - hapless flyers will find massive cancellation charges slapped on them for missing their connections.

Away, here is an interesting instance where the customers had to bear extra of  £10 – for proving that the flight was indeed cancelled.   A post in Daily Mail on 21^st Apr 2015 stated that the budget airline easyJet has been charging stranded customers a £10 fee for proof that their flight was cancelled.The charge came to light when customers sought to claim money back from travel insurers after French air-traffic strikes affected flights earlier this month.They were asked to provide an airline letter confirming the cancellation, but easyJet told its hard-hit passengers to pay a £10 fee.

The Association of European Airlines confirmed last night that no other airline has attempted to charge for this and said customers should not be charged.However, a spokesman for easyJet defended the airline’s position, saying: ‘The administration charge for the letter is applied because each letter has to be individually researched and created for each passenger.’In an email seen by the Mail in response to one customer’s request, easyJet’s customer service team said: ‘We can certainly send you a letter to help you claim on your insurance, that’s not a problem.‘There is a small administration fee of 10GBP for the letter, which you should be able to claim back through your insurer.’

There were delays and 1,000 flight cancellations across Europe this month following the 48-hour strike by French air-traffic controllers.EasyJet is France’s second-largest airline and cancelled 588 flights over the two days. The airline launched ‘rescue flights’ to repatriate holidaymakers and children stranded abroad. Ryanair cancelled 500 flights while British Airways and Flybe cancelled fewer than 50 each.The  flight cancellations have risen by a fifth in the first quarter of 2015 as services were hit by poor weather as well as the strikes.

There were 5,080 cancellations in the first three months of 2015 compared to 4,239 in the same period last year.The number of delayed flights increased by 7 per cent with 2,427 hold-ups compared to 2,260. Monarch had the greatest increase in delays – 30 per cent – with 64 incidents, according to figures from compensation firm EUClaim.The EUClaim report said: ‘There are two main reasons for the poor start to the year. Firstly the winter weather across Europe has been worse than 2014 this particularly affected Jet2, easyJet and Monarch who suffered considerable delays on their routes to Chambery and Grenoble in France.‘The second cause has been the number of strikes in Europe. The four-day Lufthansa strike resulted in some 116 cancelled flights to the UK, strikes by Italian air traffic controllers and security staff in Germany has also compounded the problem.’

Whatever it was – for preferring a claim, one will have to establish the cause with proof – the Insurers were right in asking for a documentary proof – and the Airlines which cancelled their flights causing inconvenience sought £10 towards documentation charges ! – strange are the ways of people.

With regards – S. Sampathkumar

18^th June 2015.