FORM-Idea

Having faith in the constantly repeated advice of Western scientists, that Coronavirus was just like a ‘flu and that the Chinese epidemic wouldn’t affect Europe – I booked, without great concern, on February 16^th, 2020, a six-week trip: Caribbean-Paris, Valencia-London, Paris-Montreal, Canada-French West Indies. In order to arrange this itinerary, I booked my transatlantic flights with Level Airlines (whose parent company is IAG[1]) and Air Canada on Lastminute.com, but surprisingly the payment was processed by its Czech partner Kiwi.com, a company I’d never come across before. As for my Intra-European flights, I booked directly with Air France and British Airways.  

When my trips were cancelled one after the other because of Covid-19, I realised that refund processing hugely differed from one airline to the other. The easiest procedure was with Air France, which offers customers an easy, clear and effective online method. At the other end of the spectrum, British Airways required all refund requests to be made over the phone in the midst of a global pandemic, when most call centres were closed. How ironic! Prior to the pandemic, BA required all refund requests to be made exclusively online[2]. After two frustrating hours on hold, you obviously ended up opting for the online option: a voucher valid until April 2021. After customers complained, BA extended voucher validity up until April 2022.

Now, let’s come to the worst airlines: Air Canada and Level – unless the obstruction to obtaining refunds actually came from Kiwi.com and Lastminute.com, on the lookout for an easy profit. When the first segment of my trip was cancelled (FDF-PARIS) in April 2020 by Level Airlines, Kiwi.com and Lastminute.com were very quick to respond, with emails and text messages urgently requesting action: either choose an alternative date or a full refund. When I clicked on refund, I had two options:

• 1) An immediate €83 kiwi.com’s voucher. (I had paid £700 for the full itinerary.)
• 2) A very long refund process that could take over three months.

It seems clear that if Kiwi.com offered an €83 voucher to every customer, there was something fishy going on. A private company would never give a gift to customers, profit being at the core of business philosophy. My main problem with the refund option was that it would have automatically cancelled my seats for all other flight segments which were still scheduled at that point in time, thus preventing me from obtaining a refund for the segments Paris-Montreal and Canada-Caribbean. Had I cancelled these two scheduled flights then I would have become solely responsible for these cancellations and therefore unable to claim a refund. So… Who would have benefited from such options? Certainly not the consumer who had paid for a service that was partially cancelled. Thus, I decided my best option was to take no action.

In May, I noticed that my second transatlantic flight segment was cancelled on the Level website, but this time I was not notified by Lastminute.com nor by Kiwi.com. Worse still, my reservation number had disappeared altogether when I typed it on their sites. A message popped up saying there wasn’t any booking made under this number. I was flabbergasted.

Fortunately, I had saved the booking PDF that had been emailed to me on the day of purchase (always keep your emails!) and by clicking on the link for my reservation, I was able to see my booking details on Kiwi.com. I noticed the second segment of my trip was indeed cancelled by Level airlines, a low-cost subsidiary of Iberia and British Airways.

I decided to click again on the refund option and I was now offered three options:

1 – A Kiwi voucher for €83.
2 – A six-week priority full refund for a €20 non-refundable administration fee.
3 – A refund without administration fees which could take up to 3 months.

I naively chose the second option and sadly contributed to Kiwi.com’s profit. I paid for a service that has never been fulfilled.

Three days later, I noticed on my Air Canada App that the June 29^th scheduled flight which I had never consented to was no longer there. Typing in my Air Canada booking number, I briefly saw the email address of a “Frantiska” from Kiwi.com, before it disappeared. Unfortunately, I didn’t have enough time to make a note of this email address.

Eight weeks later, I received an email from Lastminute.com in which they apologised for not being able to meet their 6-week refund process (see document below). They blamed the airlines for this delay.

To date I have received no Air Canada voucher from Lastminute.com / Kiwi.com, although the Montreal company has guaranteed a lifetime credit to all their customers whose Air Canada flights have been cancelled. I contacted Air Canada by email and they replied on December 9^th, 2020 saying they will pass the information to their sales department and ask them to make contact with the travel agent. One year later, I’m still waiting for my voucher from Lastminute.com / Kiwi.com. Sadly, there is no email or phone number with which to contact them.

As for Level Airlines, formerly known as Openskies (run by British Airways), they announced on July 8^th, 2020 their intention to cease operations in France, though this did not prevent them from selling direct transatlantic flight tickets to or from Paris Orly for December 2020 and January 2021 under a Level code or Iberia codeshare.  Why miss an opportunity for making money when no longer obliged to repay debts for cancellations? On their website, I was still able to book a flight three weeks after they had ceased trading! Worse still, just before the payment was processed, for the modest sum of €150 you could be upgraded to Premium. Wow! This scam was brilliantly done, in all likelihood exploiting a legal loophole. Perhaps there’s a difference between “intention to cease trading” and “trading ceased” even if all their planes were by that time grounded in Paris Orly!

Kiwi.com was still selling Level’s transatlantic flights in October 2020 (departure from France), 4 months after Level’s statement of intent to cease operations.

In July 2020 I sent a registered letter to the head office of Level Airlines in Barcelona, asking why they had not yet refunded my flight ticket (according to Kiwi.com). I am still waiting for their reply. Today, Level Airlines still operates flights from Barcelona to North and South America.

There’s no doubt that we, the consumers, are victims of legal scams. However, we have the power to react to such business practices by boycotting those companies.

Beware of sites like Lastminute.com and Kiwi.com. They are very likely to let you down if you request a refund. It seems they don’t have the slightest qualm about running their business without any transparency whatsoever. In times of pandemic, it might be wiser to book your trips directly with large national airlines, where the government remains a shareholder and guarantor of a certain level of transparency.

Please read the update below.

1) On July 6th, 2022, following an email in which I mentioned articles 5, 7 and 8 of EC regulation n°261/2004, the Czech travel agency Kiwi.com finally replied and informed me that Air Canada had reimbursed the flight Montreal – Fort-de-France. However, Kiwi.com deals with refunds in strict chronological order, and will only release the funds once LEVEL has followed up on the refund request ‘sent in June 2020’. To make a long story short: as long as LEVEL turns a deaf ear, my money from Air Canada will be held in Kiwi.com vaults.

2) Also, on July 6th, I contacted LEVEL via their twitter account and requested a refund for my two flights FDF-ORY and ORY-YUL, again pointing out the European regulations. They replied the next day and sent me two links to apply for a full refund. A week later, the money was credited to my bank account. It is interesting to note that LEVEL did not refund via Kiwi.com.

3) On July 19th and July 21st, 2022, I emailed Kiwi.com to let them know that Level had reimbursed me (attaching copies of LEVEL’s emails) and thus they should have everything they need to process the payment for my Air Canada refund. I haven’t to date received a reply to this email since. It seems that the Spanish airline LEVEL has never been contacted by Kiwi.com, thus allowing the Czech travel agency to retain my refund from Air Canada.

4) In October 2022, Kiwi eventually refunded me thanks to the help of the European Consumer Centre. For more details, please check the French version “Les arnaques du ciel”. 

[1] IAG: International Airlines Group was born from a merger of Iberia and British Airways. They also own Vueling, Aer Lingus and Level Airlines.

[2] Some airlines took advantage of the pandemic to get rid of staff, in particular those with seniority. Some workers have said they felt forced to accept redundancy. The BBC reported on the enormous pressure experienced by British Airways flight attendants. William Walsh, CEO of the parent company, IAG, and Alex Cruz, BA’s CEO from 2016 to October 2020, have transformed the prestigious British airline into a banal low-cost one, encompassing reduced in-flight service, pressure on staff and poor maintenance of their IT department. In 2018, BA customer data was hacked and this was primarily due to underinvestment in their IT systems.

Read this article in French