Dr. Adrian Corcoran:

I thank the Deputy for the question and for his representations to us in that case. As Mr. Fitzpatrick said, we dealt with approximately 4,500 complaints last year. In the vast majority of those cases - in fact almost all of them - the complainant came to us after the disruption had already happened. People are travelling. Their flights can be cancelled or delayed. The airline is obliged to look after them in the moment of the disruption. The process operates, and if they feel they did not get their entitlements after the disruption is completed, they complain to their airline. We ask passengers to do that first. If the airline does not resolve the matter within six weeks, they can then make a complaint to us. At that point, we get into a kind of, for want of a better term, dispute resolution process with the airline. The airline involved will have an opportunity to make representations to us. That all takes time. It takes time to gather the evidence before we make a decision on a particular case. Most of the cases we get relate not to an airline looking after passengers or getting them to where they need to be and providing care and assistance during the disruption but, rather, to whether the passengers involved are entitled to additional compensation because of the disruption. The resolution results are about 50-50 in the context of whether we decide a passenger is or is not entitled to compensation. When we explain it to passengers, they are generally satisfied with the outcome.