Friday, October 26, 2018
A new research revealed that the UK witnessed the second highest number of flight delays and disruption on any country in Europe this year.
The UK flight cancellations were up 86 % as compared to 2017 and was second only to Germany.
Airhelp’s (flight compensation company) analysis of global flight data showed that more than 175,000 UK flights were delayed or cancelled so far in 2018 – 26,000 which was more than the previous year.
There was a delay of more than 15 minutes or more in 164,690 flights out of the 692,800 UK flights this year. Around 10,640 have been cancelled and more than 25 per cent of flights have been disrupted in total.
There were 167,420 delays and 14,040 cancellations this year in Germany and out of 630,000 flights, some 28.8 per cent were disrupted.
In terms of numbers of disrupted flights France, Spain and Italy were third, fourth and fifth worst affected.While Portugal had the highest percentage of flights that were delayed or cancelled. It had more than one in three of the 143,000 flights that took off in 2018.
Paloma Salmeron, air passenger rights expert at AirHelp said that 2018 saw the worst flight disruption across Europe in history. Travllers had to suffer severe delays by airlines but nowhere more so than in Germany and the UK. The air travel misery and passenger chaos was due to airline staff strikes, lack of pilots and bad weather.
The European airspace will face more havoc due to the current Brexit aviation deal limbo. It is predicted an increase in European flights to 12.4 million by 2024.
She urged the airlines to work tirelessly to help the passengers throughout the flight disruption whichever way the law turns in the UK and EU negotiations.
If the flight has been cancelled or delayed one has the right to compensation the EU law stipulated.
As per the previous EU regulation passenger are entitled for up to €600 which was in compensation when their flights lands at their destination three hours late.
The amount varies according to the distance but the airlines will not pay if the delay or cancellation is due to ‘extraordinary circumstances’ like bad weather or crew strikes.
Meals, refreshments and hotel accommodation will also be provided by the airline while passengers await a rearranged flight.
