Norwegian, the airline group Iberia, Air Europa, the broken Air Berlin, Wizz Air and Vueling were the carriers against which the claims were presented by passengers to the State Air Security Agency (Easa), the agency of the Ministry of public works, which collects the complaints about delays, cancellations and denied boarding. In 2017 to be admitted to pending 15.604 claims, 50% more than in 2015, according to official data obtained by THE COUNTRY.
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Iberia was the most-claimed in absolute terms with 2.406 records in Easa in 2017. Vueling is close to 2.333. Ryanair, with 1.789, occupies the third place. However, in relative terms, by calculating the percentage of complaints about the number of passengers that flew with each of them (with the statistics that it offers Aena network airports), the airline with the most complaints in the agency official is Norwegian, followed by Iberia and Air Nostrum. In this classification we have taken into account only the companies that transported more than a million travelers last year.
trigger complaints
The number of claims has increased by 50% with regard to 2015, when it is admitted for processing 10.068 complaints. This rise is due in part to the increase in air traffic in Spain”, says Easa in the response obtained by THE COUNTRY under the umbrella of the Transparency Law, which for the first time allows you to know data of the records are open to every airline. The increase in air traffic only explains a part of the rise in claims, as between 2015 and 2017 the number of passengers grew by 19.7%, according to data from Aena.
By typology, more than half of the complaints presented by the riders last year were due to the delay of their flight (57%). One out of every three (33%) calling for a compensation for the cancellation of the trip. The denial of boarding, with a 6%, was the reason that led to less people to ask for the intervention of the official agency. The rest (4%) corresponded to “other classifications”, according to the reply, to be signed by the director general of Easa, Isabel Maestre. The agency examines complaints that have to do with these three situations, which are listed in the european regulation 261 on passenger rights.
The airlines ignore the opinions of Easa
When he finishes his analysis —in general, the term is 90 days, extendable to 120, if the matter is complex, Easa issued a final report that is sent both to the passenger and the airline. However, these resolutions do not have binding character and, in fact, many airlines ignore them and force users to resort to the courts. The reports of Easa should be binding according to the european legislation, but the regulatory change that will allow you to in 2019 is still in the process, as advanced in this journal.
The majority of airlines consulted avoided to answer the question of whether they comply with the agency’s reports when they favor the passenger, although they are not compelled to do so. Volotea (with 172 claims and 811.576 passengers in 2017) was the only one that replied, and said that it meets “carefully” all the resolutions ordered to indemnify the users by “company policy”.
passengers can use Aesa only when the airline has not answered after 30 days or when the response has not been satisfactory. It is a sort of second instance. The data obtained by THE COUNTRY does not correspond to claims filed, but admissible by this agency.
The explanation of Norwegian
Norwegian has an explanation for the high number of claims that show the official data of Easa. First, it ensures that in 2017 identified that “many passengers” dealt with claims before the agency and to the company at the same time. “We have evidence that, from the end of 2017, Easa is being more strict with the admission,” adds a spokesman. In the second place, the company refers to the “bias” which involve the competencies of Easa. The agency is responsible for flights with origin in a Spanish airport or with origin in a non-eu country and destination Spanish with community air carrier. This, according to the spokesman, left the Norwegian in a worse situation than other airlines that have less bases in Spain. Norwegian ensures that, with data of complaints received in the OCU, your company is the one that has the best ratio, up to 10 times less than their competitors.
For its part, Vueling says it is the first company in Spain in domestic routes, with 27 airports, and that the number of claims represents a very low percentage on the passengers transported. “Although we would like the total of our claims out-0. And in this work,” said a spokesman. The other companies with the worst rates of claims —the Group Iberia (including Iberia Express and Air Nostrum), Air Europa and Wizz Air— are not discussed the data obtained by THE COUNTRY. Air Berlin went bankrupt last year and stopped flying on 28 October.
Companies with only a few passengers and many claims
The airlines carry a few passengers (between 20,000 and 100,000 in 2017) are the ones that have the worst rates of claims before the State Air Security Agency (Easa), according to the official data obtained by THE COUNTRY. Plus Ultra, a company that flies to Caracas and Lima from Tenerife North and Madrid, had 333 records in the agency dependent on the Ministry of Development last year, when he led them to their destinations to 98.794 passengers according to the data of the airports of Aena. Are 3.371 claims per million passengers, a rate that multiplies by almost 20 to the Norwegian, the large company (more than one million passengers in Spain) with more complaints. This newspaper tried unsuccessfully to obtain his release.
Conviasa, the venezuelan flag, it occupies the second position, while Cuban of Aviation figure in the third place. Cobrex Trans, airline Romanian who flies to Madrid and Barcelona occupies the fourth position. A lot of distance in percentage of complaints by traveller, in fifth place, is Wamos Air, the old Pullmantur Air, based at the airport Adolfo Suárez-Madrid Barajas and which operates mainly charter flights to several destinations in the Caribbean. In the classification have been considerado only airlines with more than 50 claims filed in Easa during the year 2017.
One of the companies with the worst rate of complaints (in seventh place in the table), broke last October. This is First Air, a Danish company with main base in Riga that offered flights from scandinavian countries to destinations in the Mediterranean, Asia, and the Caribbean, and that only a month before had announced it would start operating low cost flights from Madrid to New York, Toronto and Boston in the summer of 2019.
