Airport in Phuket & Thailand

Features : June 2010

Safety First or Costly Blunder?

Last month the authorities took a Draconian decision to close European airspace because of a volcanic dust cloud, resulting in massive disruption to traffic and huge losses to the airlines. The industry argued that the decision should have been left to them. They say that they regularly make life-and-death judgement calls as part of their daily operations.

Oh, no. Mount Eyjafjallajokull (easy for you to say) has erupted, and your idyllic Phuket holiday ends tomorrow. The plan was to return to London.

Suddenly a huge volcanic ash cloud drifts over the United Kingdom and Northern Europe, and your chances of returning home are reduced to zero.

Airports are closed, aircraft are grounded, and hundreds of thousands of passengers are stranded.
Last month hundreds of people were left high and dry in Thailand, when the volcano’s eruption caused the biggest disruption to global air traffic since the 9/11 terrorist attack in 2001.

What are your rights in these circumstances? It can be argued that a volcanic eruption like this is force majeure (French for superior force), a catastrophic, unforeseeable event which frees contractual parties from fulfilling their obligations.

Contrary to popular belief, airlines are not required to compensate passengers whose flights are delayed or cancelled. Compensation is only required by law, when you’re ‘bumped’ from a flight which is oversold.

Airlines, in general, almost always refuse to pay passengers for financial losses resulting from a delayed flight. Airlines can’t guarantee their schedules, because there are so many variables that can impact on them.

There’s also some confusion between ‘compensation’ and ‘expenses’. Airlines are required to meet expenses such as meals and accommodation for passengers stranded by a volcanic eruption or other ‘acts of God’, but they aren’t obliged to compensate them for loss of earnings etc.

So for future reference, how do you cope when flights are delayed or cancelled? Here are a few tips.

When booking a flight, remember that an early departure is less likely to be delayed than flights later in the day, which are more likely to suffer from ripple effects i.e. the compounding of delaying factors. You also have more re-routing options early in the day.
If you’re delayed, immediately ask the airline staff if it will pay for meals, phone calls, etc.
If you’ve booked through a travel agent or via online portals such as Expedia, Orbitz and Travelocity, then phone them. Often, they’ll be more sympathetic than staff at the airport.
In the European Union, which was most affected by the volcano eruption, the rights of airline passengers are contained in EU Regulation 261/2004. Of course, you’re not likely to be carrying a copy of this around, but neither is the ground staff, so give it a mention. However, be warned. Airlines may seek cover behind the clause, which says their liability is null and void in, ‘extraordinary circumstances which could not have been avoided even if all reasonable measures had been taken’.

What about complaints? If you wish to pursue this course of action, there are several organizations that you can approach, depending on where you reside.

In the UK, contact the Air Transport Users Council or the Association of British Travel Agents.

In the USA, the appropriate body is the Aviation Consumer Protection Division. The USA also has the Customer Service Initiative. This is a voluntary code of practise which the airline industry drew up, to address the adverse publicity resulting from US companies’ habit of just abandoning customers when things went awry.

Internationally, there’s the International Airline Passengers Association.

How did the Thai airline industry handle the problems caused by the volcanic eruption?

Thai Airways International was the most affected, because flights to Europe are the backbone of its network. They operate routes to 13 major European cities.

By April 15, they’d cancelled about 70 flight legs, which cost them around 100 million baht a day in lost revenue, and stranded more than 22,000 passengers.

Passengers transiting through Rome and Madrid were offered the option of re-routing flights through Athens, Moscow and other cities not affected by the ash.

Thailand Inc. swung into action to help the thousands of passengers affected both in Thailand and abroad.

The Thai Immigration Bureau agreed to waive visa overstay fees for foreigners stranded in Thailand, and the Thai government instructed embassies abroad to help stranded citizens, even offering financial assistance.

Could all of this disruption have been avoided? The International Air Transport Association (IATA) think authorities did act too hastily, and without adequate consultation. On the other hand, the experts say that volcanic ash contains millions of tiny pumice-like crystals. These may be ingested into the aircraft’s engines, causing them to close down. There is, of course, no record of such an incident resulting in an accident. Occasionally, aircraft have experienced loss of power and altitude after flying through a volcanic dust cloud, but they recovered and landed safely. NATO continued air exercises throughout the crisis, and more than 40 test flights were conducted over Europe, without incident.

This argument will rage of for some time, but in the meantime nobody would have had any sympathy for a civil aviation authority that did nothing, and fatalities then resulted.

By Alastair Carthew, a Phuket based writer and communications advisor.
Tel: +66 (0)76 317929
Email: alastaircarthew@gmail.com

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Safety First or Costly Blunder?