The Times - UK (2022-06-11)

the times | Saturday June 11 2022 57

Money

Turn down the

Aga: money

saving tips for

the wealthy

Pages 62-63

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A

s a member of the European
parliament for ten years,
Philip Bushill-Matthews is
well aware of his rights
when he flies abroad. But
even he has become so despairing of
the airlines’ failure to stick to the
regulations that he has decided to take
legal action.
Bushill-Matthews, 79, a Conservative
MEP from 1999 to 2009, has resorted to
the small claims court to recoup more
than £638 after his trip from Birming-
ham to Tenerife was cancelled and he
found it impossible to get hold of

Ryanair. “I applied for a full refund and

got an automated acknowledgement

that day. But since then nothing,” he

said. “I decided to sue when I sent a final

email demanding my refund, but was

ignored.”

Bushill-Matthews, from Leamington

Spa, filled in an online claim form on

June 3 and is now encouraging others

affected by the latest flight chaos to

stand up to an industry that he says is

flouting the rules.

0 What are the rules?

Airlines flying from or to Britain are

governed by EU regulation EC261,

which was transferred to British law

after Brexit. It says that your airline

must offer you a full refund or an alter-

native flight as soon as possible if it

cancels your trip. This alternative flight

could be with another carrier if it gets

you there faster.

The aviation data analysts Cirium

said that 750 departures from the UK

were cancelled between May 27 and

June 7, containing a total of 122,417

seats. Some 70,916 tourists may have

been stuck at their destinations after

466 inbound departures were can-

celled. Airlines that cancelled flights in-

clude Ryanair, easyJet, British Airways

and Tui.

Travellers have said airlines have

been impossible to reach on the phone

or even by email to arrange refunds or

new trips.

Lisa Webb, a lawyer at the consumer

group Which?, said: “It’s an absolute

shambles. Many airlines are making it

almost impossible to reach them in the

first place. Then there is a systematic

failure to offer rerouting with alter-

native carriers, which is what the law

clearly and specifically says they should

do. Many passengers are unaware that

they have a right to ask for this.”

0 The court as a last resort

If you have absolutely no joy getting

through to your airline, you may have

to go through the small claims system.

Lawyers are expecting a surge in

small claims cases after last week’s trav-

el chaos, but the first step should always

final quarter of 2021 show that the aver-

age time taken for small claims to get to

court was 51.4 weeks — 14.3 weeks

longer than in 2019.

The court fees on claims for up to

£300 are £35; claims of up to £500 cost

£50; and anything between £500 and

£1,000 costs £70. If you are owed

between £1,000 and £1,500 the fee is

£80.

Ryanair wrote to Bushill-Matthews

24 hours after the airline was contacted

by The Times. It apologised for the

delay and promised a refund. Bushill-

Matthews, however, says he intends to

continue his case because Ryanair has

forgotten to cover his baggage.

First the

flight delay,

now the

fightback

Airlines have to offer you a refund or another

route if they cancel your trip. Here’s what you

should do if they don’t, says David Byers

Even the bank that bet big on branches has started closing them

M

etro Bank will close premises
for the first time next week but
has insisted it isn’t walking
away from its branch-first strategy.
Three branches will close on Friday
in Earls Court, west London, Milton
Keynes and Windsor. Metro Bank said
all three had other branches nearby.
In February Metro said: “The loca-
tion of Earls Court – on the busy A4 into
central London – was chosen due to the
high level of traffic going past, and was
an ideal location to publicise the launch
of Metro Bank. It was perfect for raising

the bank’s visibility, but has proven to

be too far away from retail areas and

pedestrian routes, which has meant

Earls Court has consistently been one

of our quietest.”

Last month the bank said it had not

had any feedback from the local

community about its plan to close the

Earls Court branch. It was only in

Windsor that “some customers were

upset we are closing and leaving the

high street”.

Metro Bank was founded by the

American banker Vernon Hill in July

2010, and made a big play of opening

big, bright, colourful branches, which it

called “stores”, that would be open for

long hours seven days a week and al-

lowed dogs.

The first “store” was in Holborn, cen-

tral London, and Hill said there would

be 200 in London alone by 2020, at a

time when other high street banks were

closing branches and developing online

and mobile banking services instead.

By the end of this year it is expected

that a total of 4,976 bank branches

will have closed since January 2015,

according to the consumer group

Which? — 52 a month.

Metro insists it is not going the same

way, but it has scaled back its opening

ambitions and from Friday will have

only 76 branches. The chief executive,

Dan Frumkin, took over in 2020 after

an accounting scandal that led to the

departure of Hill as chairman and the

former chief executive Craig Donald-

son. Frumkin said the branches were

“too large” and “not efficient”.

Metro Bank is still not profitable. Its

pre-tax losses were £245.1 million last

year, down from £311.4 million in 2020.

It has, however, been consistently

named one of the best banks for cus-

tomer service by its more than two mil-

lion customers. Rankings published

twice a year by the Competition and

Markets Authority have put it as the

fourth best bank since August 2020.

Metro Bank said: “There are alter-

native stores in each location and we

are pleased to avoid job losses by offer-

ing colleagues employment at other

stores or customer contact centres.”

George Nixon

J

aeeun Mott, a

paediatric healthcare

assistant who lives in

London, had not seen her

mother, who is in South

Korea, for three years

because of the pandemic.

She planned to meet

her in the Spanish city of

Bilbao to walk the

Santiago de Compostela

pilgrimage in memory of

a great uncle who had

died. Mott, 31, and her

son Alfie, nine, arrived at

Gatwick airport two and

a half hours early for

their Vueling flight on

May 30 and found chaos

at the check-in.

“The queue was

enormous and it didn’t

move, and there was no

one to speak to, it was

absolutely mad,” she said.

“Vueling didn’t seem to

have any staff. Only one

person was processing

the check-ins for

seemingly every flight

leaving the airport.”

Alfie, who is autistic,

“does not cope well with

uncertainty, or with loud

noises or crowded spaces,

and he was trying so hard

not to have a meltdown,

but he ended up lying on

the floor crying.”

When their flight left

without them, Jaeeun

tried to find someone to

ask what would happen

next. She said she was

told to call the airline or

talk to a chatbot.

Vueling offered to

refund the outgoing flight

but not the return, on

June 4, which was not

cancelled — even though

Mott and Alfie had not

been able to leave the

UK. After The Times got

in touch with Vueling it

said it would refund the

family in full.

‘Our son was on

the floor of the

airport crying’

Jaeeun and Jamie Mott

with Alfie, who struggled

with the chaos at Gatwick

How to claim in court

6 To claim in the small claims court

your loss needs to be under

£10,000 in England and Wales,

under £5,000 in Scotland or

£3,000 in Northern Ireland.

6 You can claim through gov.uk by

filling in a form if your flight either

departed from or arrived into the

UK or was operated by a UK airline.

6 There will be a question about

the basis for your claim, so write

that you are making it under the

terms of the EC261 legislation. Give

details of your flight and the

amount of money you are seeking

to get back.

be to request a refund or alternative

flight from your airline.

If you cannot get help, use the air-

line’s alternative dispute resolution

service, which should be run by an

independent arbitrator. In the case of

easyJet and Ryanair, this is run by an

organisation called Aviation ADR.

Small claims court claims can be

slow. Ministry of Justice figures for the

51 weeks

average time for a small

claim to get to court