4 Worst Anti-Consumer Practices Airlines Do

Aviation

4. Cramming more and more seats into planes

Planes are complex machines that are expensive to operate. Naturally, airlines want to have more and more people on a flight, to make each run bring in more profit. One of the ways to do that is to add more seats to the cabin.

Naturally, planes aren’t infinite, so the place has to come from somewhere. And it does: your personal space is cut down so much that complaining about lack of room in planes isn’t even fun anymore. That’s why we have got to mention the difficulties of reclining when talking about sleeping on a plane. And some airlines are even obstructing emergency exists just to cram more seats.

3. Overbooking

So your passengers are already squeezed like sardines. However, there are good odds that at least some of them will miss the flight. Whatever the reason may be – absent-mindedness, traffic, family emergencies, Netflix – some people will leave their seats empty.

That’s why overbooking exists. If you sell more tickets than you have seats, chances are that you’ll find some empty spaces to put the extra passengers in. And if you don’t, well, you ask some people to leave their seats. Or you can just violently drag them out of a plane. At least you can claim flight compensation for those overbooked flights!

2. Ancillary Revenues

What do you buy when purchasing a flight ticket? A near-guarantee that you won’t be thrown out of your seat and be able to fly somewhere. That’s basically all you get these days, especially if you’re flying with budget carriers. For everything else, you have to pay extra.

That’s what ancillary revenues are: charges for every little bit of extra. More check-in baggage, food, etc. – all of them are part of the ever-increasing pool of things you also have to buy to fly. Ancillary revenue grew by 128% from 2014 to 2018.  The budget airlines were pushing so hard for it that legacy carriers got into it, to the point were Lufthansa became one of the top 3 ancillary revenue earners. And the airlines have little desire to be fair with them, as proven by the fact that Ryanair and WizzAir got fined for lack of transparency when it came to carry-on luggage and associated fees.

1. Avoiding paying compensation

Hey, remember how we mentioned overbooking back in #3? Well, it’s one of the three kinds of flight disruption you can claim compensation for. Cancelled flights and flight delays are the other two. Depending on the length of the trip, you can gain up to €600 in-flight compensation!

If the airlines pay up, that is. Regulation (EC) 261/2004, as wondrous as it is, provides many exceptional circumstances under which you can’t claim flight compensation – but no deadlines on paying them. That’s how airlines end up sitting on piles and piles of unpaid compensations. And they don’t even show it on their end-of-year reports, which allows them to claim higher profits. If that doesn’t work out for them, well, an airline going bankrupt is one of the exceptional cases when you can’t claim flight compensation!

So on this Friday – or possibly even today – make a like consumer and claim flight compensation. If you experienced a cancelled flight or flight delay or overbooking within the last 3 years, Skycop can help you claim compensation! Fill a Skycop form now and celebrate World Consumer Rights Day as a conscious consumer!

Claim now!

 

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