Gerald Nash (Louth, Labour)
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237. To ask the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport the status of recent meetings with senior airline management; if the issue of airline refunds for customers during the travel restrictions was raised; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [21769/21]

Hildegarde Naughton (Galway West, Fine Gael)
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The matter of consumer protection, consumer refunds and fair treatment of air passengers who choose not to travel on Government advice has been raised consistently with the main Irish airlines over the course of the pandemic. Minister of State Naughton and I continue to stress to the airlines that people are given choice and are allowed to defer travel – because of legitimate reasons – without being penalised.   

Ryanair has most recently stated that the expiry dates for vouchers that were issued last year have been extended to enable passengers to make bookings when travel is open again. In this vein, rebooking can also be made with no charge of flight fee for travel before 31 Oct 2021. Vouchers that were offered to customers whose flights were cancelled can be converted to cash at any time or can be redeemed for future bookings.

Aer Lingus has indicated that under their “Book with Confidence” policy - covering all flights scheduled to run until the end of 2021 including those who may have already re-booked for a future travel date – customers are able to change their travel date free of charge, as many times as they wish up to 2 hours before their flight. They also indicate that passengers may swap their booking for a voucher and that their vouchers are valid for 5 years.

With regard to refunds for cancelled flights, it is understood that the backlogs have been prioritised and that most refunds have now been processed. I would encourage anyone, who having already corresponded with an airline continues to have difficulties securing a refund,  to contact the Commission for Aviation Regulation, which is the statutory body in Ireland with responsibility for enforcing airline refund obligations. 

Further advice on consumer rights, including information on how you might submit a formal complaint to the CAR is available on its dedicated passenger rights website www.flightrights.ie.