It has been a Press Release , as Wizz Air Holdings PLC is being slammed by UK's aviation regulator for "unacceptable" behaviour as its passengers are far more likely to make escalated complaints than those of other airlines.
The UK Civil Aviation Authority (UK-CAA) has become critical of Wizz Air over high volumes of Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) complaints and delays in paying passengers what they are owed.
The latest quarterly complaints data published by the Civil Aviation Authority shows that Wizz Air ranked as clearly the worst airline for complaints escalated to either ADR schemes or the regulator’s in-house complaints team in the third quarter of 2022, with 811 complaints per million passengers.
With the exception of Royal Brunei Airlines which has 555 complaints per million passengers, other airlines had less than half as many complaints, and many significantly less.
Recently ,Wizzair celebrated the inaugural flight from London Luton Airport to the capital of Jordan, Amman !
The regulator also recently questioned the time Wizz Air was taking to process claims received directly from passengers, and the large number of County Court Judgements (CCJs) which have been found against Wizz Air and remain unpaid.
The UK Civil Aviation Authority has been clear with Wizz Air that this is an unacceptable way to treat passengers and that it is imperative for the issues to be tackled urgently.
Wizz Air has acknowledged and expressed regret over these problems and has committed to the Civil Aviation Authority that it will clear the backlogs of claims and outstanding ADR payments by Christmas. Wizz Air is also working to identify and conclude all outstanding CCJs. The Civil Aviation Authority will continue to monitor progress.
Anna Bowles, Head of Consumer Policy & Enforcement at the UK Civil Aviation Authority, said:
"Passengers have every right to expect their complaints and claims to be resolved quickly and efficiently and to be treated fairly by airlines. The volume of complaints and claims received by ADR in respect of Wizz Air is far higher than those seen for other airlines. This, alongside the delays in processing and paying claims and the large number of County Court Judgements made against Wizz Air, has raised significant concerns for the CAA.
“We have made it clear to Wizz Air that its behaviour is unacceptable and that we expect overdue complaints and claims to be resolved in advance of Christmas. We understand the payment of County Court Judgements may continue into January, but we are encouraging Wizz Air to ensure that the payment of these is also prioritised. We will continue to monitor the situation. Where we have evidence that an airline is letting passengers down, we won’t hesitate to take further action where required.”
While accepting the development , Wizz Air statement read as :
"We are deeply sorry for the inconvenience we have caused our customers and we are working hard to put things right and resolve all outstanding claims as quickly as possible.
"The major disruption we navigated last summer meant that we have been dealing with an unprecedented number of claims."Despite this, 91% of claims have already been processed.
"We have recently doubled the size of our customer services team and are working continuously to process all outstanding customer claims, Alternative Dispute Resolution claims and settle all county court judgments."
