Ryanair making it difficult for customers to get refunds

Apologies but I am being factually correct.
Check EU regulation 261/2004..pg 2 no. 14 ......this is why Ryanair is suddenly joining forces with other airlines.
"As under the Montreal Convention, obligations on oper- ating air carriers should be limited or excluded in cases where an event has been caused by extraordinary circumstances which could not have been avoided even if all reasonable measures had been taken. Such circum- stances may, in particular, occur in cases of political instability, meteorological conditions incompatible with the operation of the flight concerned, security risks, unexpected flight safety shortcomings and strikes that affect the operation of an

You have the right to ask, complain, contact them but if the EU decides to allow this we are potentially getting nothing. I complained about their treatment of customers.

Hi Foxy,

You can put your mind to rest a little! The bit you quote is from the preamble to the Regulation and sets out the basis for the contents of the Regulation itself. The operative bits are the Articles of the Regulation. Article 7 sets out the right to compensation (usually €250 for cancelled or delayed flights.) Article 8 specifies the right to reimbursement or rerouting. Article 5 sets out when the provisions of Articles 7 and 8 apply. I
Article 5.3 excludes compensation under Article 7 but not reimbursement under Article 8 if the airline can show "extraordinary circumstances."

So, to summarize:
Ordinarily, if the airline cancels, you get your money back PLUS compensation.
In extraordinary circumstances, you get your money back. No additional compensation.

That's the law. The Irish Government cannot change it. Only the EU can. And changing EU law takes time. And requires signoff by the European Council and the European Parliament.

So, you ARE entitled to that money within seven days. End of story.
 
Yes you are entitled to your money within 7 days. Never mind the global pandemic, the hundreds of thousands of other people looking for refunds across all of Europe, the airline having the same workplace restrictions as other companies. I was waiting 7 weeks for a refund from a hotel with less than 100 rooms. Things take time. But hey, keep quoting the law to them. That will make them work faster....
 
Yes you are entitled to your money within 7 days. Never mind the global pandemic, the hundreds of thousands of other people looking for refunds across all of Europe, the airline having the same workplace restrictions as other companies. I was waiting 7 weeks for a refund from a hotel with less than 100 rooms. Things take time. But hey, keep quoting the law to them. That will make them work faster....

Ryanair were emailing customers during the pandemic in March when workplace restrictions were already in place telling them they would get a refund to the payment method within 7 working days. We're now in May and it seems that they have processed very few, possibly none. Yet they are very efficient at sending out vouchers that customers have already told them they don't want.

Make all the excuses you want but they don't wash with me.
 
Ryanair were emailing customers during the pandemic in March when workplace restrictions were already in place telling them they would get a refund to the payment method within 7 working days. We're now in May and it seems that they have processed very few, possibly none. Yet they are very efficient at sending out vouchers that customers have already told them they don't want.

Make all the excuses you want but they don't wash with me.

Sorry they don't wash with you. Keep quoting legislation to a company that is burning cash and letting go of 3000 employees and remind them you are very important and that your refund should be top of the queue. They have said everyone will be refunded within 6 months. Since that doesn't wash with you, feel free to bring them to Court quoting your legislation...… I am sure they will rush your case to the top of the queue there as well.
 
Sorry they don't wash with you. Keep quoting legislation to a company that is burning cash and letting go of 3000 employees and remind them you are very important and that your refund should be top of the queue. They have said everyone will be refunded within 6 months. Since that doesn't wash with you, feel free to bring them to Court quoting your legislation...… I am sure they will rush your case to the top of the queue there as well.
That's harsh. They're a company with billions of cash on the balance sheet. The government is paying their employees. Returning money to customers who are legally owed that money should be a top priority. It's not like they're doing much else these days in fairness.
 
I still say those of us who have asked for refunds won't be able to set our minds at rest.... if it is even in the preamble to the regulation it can still be used in defence or for emergency legislation if the EU decide to rescue their airlines. Hence Ryanair are referring to it.

Hi Foxy,

You can put your mind to rest a little! The bit you quote is from the preamble to the Regulation and sets out the basis .....
 
I've no Grá for Ryanair, but we are in an unprecedented pandemic. Those who are entitled to refunds will get them, of that there can be no doubt. I don't know when this will happen, but the main thing is it will happen.

3000 pilots and cabin crew laid off, administrative staff caught up in unprecedented paperwork, call-centre being jammed by callers looking for their €49.99 refunds etc. I reckon patience is required. I'm just imagining Michael O'Leary eating his breakfast reading through the daily newspapers and unions on his back, costs mounting etc and you think he is going to give a few €49.99 refunds before anything else? I don't think so! Get back in the Non-Priority queue.
 
I've no Grá for Ryanair, but we are in an unprecedented pandemic. Those who are entitled to refunds will get them, of that there can be no doubt. I don't know when this will happen, but the main thing is it will happen.

3000 pilots and cabin crew laid off, administrative staff caught up in unprecedented paperwork, call-centre being jammed by callers looking for their €49.99 refunds etc. I reckon patience is required. I'm just imagining Michael O'Leary eating his breakfast reading through the daily newspapers and unions on his back, costs mounting etc and you think he is going to give a few €49.99 refunds before anything else? I don't think so! Get back in the Non-Priority queue.
Of course it doesn't spoil his breakfast! He's the one sitting on an interest free loan from Joe Soap. Now, if there were a swingeing penalty for breaking the law, he might look up from the feed of rashers and order a minion to get those refunds paid and pronto.
 
Irish begrudgery is alive and well.God how i hate it.Worse than cov 19.in my humble opinion of course.!
 
So if some gurrier ribs your stuff, it's begrudgery to want it back?
So if some gurrier robs your stuff, it's begrudgery to want it back?
Let's cut the semantics and stick with the facts. Nobody robbed your money and nobody has an interest free loan from you. You want your money back and so do thousands of others. It is likely Ryanair wants to get the problem solved too. It will be refunded to you and the only question is when.

But, if you work in administration in Ryanair you're sitting in an office with thousands of emails arriving by the hour and later that day the same emails from the same people are again arriving. The same happens the following day and every day for weeks. Suddenly, you have meltdown and nobody gets anything. It's like being at a yellow boxed junction with the road ahead clear of traffic but with the usual morons illegally stopped in the yellow box preventing traffic that can move to remain still.
 
My eyes are welling up here with sympathy for Ryanair and their administration staff under bombardment from unhappy customers! I mean unhappy customers must be such a novel experience for them:p
And just to be clear; I have no dog in this fight. I never fly with them if there's any kind of reasonable alternative from an airline that doesn't pride itself on treating people like dirt.

Now, I'm a reasonable guy. I get that companies are busy. I get that it's an exceptional circumstance. Stuff happens, that's life, we make the best of it and move on. So I could perfectly understand if Ryanair said something like: We're really sorry for the inconvenience. We're working as fast as we can to get your refund to you. We are currently processing refunds from flights booked before day X, or cancelled before day Y. We expect to have all refunds completed by day Z. If you would prefer a voucher, click here and we'll give you a 10% bonus extra on your cancelled ticket price.

Now that would be quality customer service. And it would be fair. Naturally, that's not what Ryanair did. Their attitude is basically, F-you, we've got your money; we'll make it as difficult as possible for you to get it back, we won't tell you when but don't expect it any time soon. We'd really like you to take this not terribly useful voucher instead so we'll send it to you anyway and hope you'll get so fed up you'll just roll over and accept it. And maybe never use it and just forget about it.

Now, I don't like that attitude. It's lousy customer service. It's illegal. It typifies the reasons I try not to fly with them. It's unreasonable. How come they're unable to process cash refunds but can readily process vouchers. Pull the other one!
 
Now, I don't like that attitude. It's lousy customer service. It's illegal. It typifies the reasons I try not to fly with them. It's unreasonable. How come they're unable to process cash refunds but can readily process vouchers. Pull the other one!

That's it, in a nutshell.

To claim that they can't find a way to refund peoples money, just isn't believable.

I appreciate that they may need to create a new process, authorise staff to start making manual payments via a restricted bank account, or maybe pay someone to write some software, so payments can be returned electronically, but refunds could be made, if they wanted to make them.

I expect that Ryanair pay their staff electronically, by uploading payroll files to their Bank. Can something similar not be done, to refund their customers? If a similar system can't be used to make large numbers of automatic card payments, I'm sure customers would be more than willing to provide their bank details.

I'd have a lot more sympathy and understanding for an airline that came out publicly and stated that they just didn't have the cash to refund everyone, but would make payments as circumstances allowed, or give vouchers for 110% which could be used at any time in the future etc.

I would also want to be confident that an airline had really tried various means to raise funds, to facilitate reasonably prompt refunds, including :

* Bank loans
* Issuing Corporate Bonds
* Issuing new shares and selling them to raise more capital (via rights issue, public offering or trade deal with a corporate investor)

As for our Government, they've just made a bad situation worse here.
 
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My eyes are welling up here with sympathy for Ryanair and their administration staff under bombardment from unhappy customers! I mean unhappy customers must be such a novel experience for them:p
And just to be clear; I have no dog in this fight. I never fly with them if there's any kind of reasonable alternative from an airline that doesn't pride itself on treating people like dirt.

Now, I'm a reasonable guy. I get that companies are busy. I get that it's an exceptional circumstance. Stuff happens, that's life, we make the best of it and move on. So I could perfectly understand if Ryanair said something like: We're really sorry for the inconvenience. We're working as fast as we can to get your refund to you. We are currently processing refunds from flights booked before day X, or cancelled before day Y. We expect to have all refunds completed by day Z. If you would prefer a voucher, click here and we'll give you a 10% bonus extra on your cancelled ticket price.

Now that would be quality customer service. And it would be fair. Naturally, that's not what Ryanair did. Their attitude is basically, F-you, we've got your money; we'll make it as difficult as possible for you to get it back, we won't tell you when but don't expect it any time soon. We'd really like you to take this not terribly useful voucher instead so we'll send it to you anyway and hope you'll get so fed up you'll just roll over and accept it. And maybe never use it and just forget about it.

Now, I don't like that attitude. It's lousy customer service. It's illegal. It typifies the reasons I try not to fly with them. It's unreasonable. How come they're unable to process cash refunds but can readily process vouchers. Pull the other one!

My Gawd! Boomer. You're making it as difficult as possible to receive your money back from Ryanair. Like I said in a previous post the more you bombard them with your wants, the more Ryanair will ignore you. Most other companies in the same situation would probably ignore you too.

Ryanair was never excellent at Customer Service. In fact, Michael O'Leary in one of his television appearances stated "The Customer is Nearly Always Wrong." And that was in the day when there was no coronavirus. It makes you wonder what he'd say now. Unless you lived in a deserted island off Antarctica for the past 20 years you must have known that Ryanair's Customer Service is almost non existent.

You and others bombarding Ryanair with shoals of (electronic) paper complaints will only frustrate you and lengthen the time you'll be waiting for a reply. Believe me, as a former employee of Customer Service section in a huge company where the person who whispered was dealt with first and those who shouted were left to keep shouting. I could write a book on the experiences and my Number One Rule was deal first with those who were civil and largely ignore as long as possible those who were making my life difficult. It always worked.
 
I am due to fly with them to Marseille later this month. They are still selling flights there. I can "check in" online. Yet they are saying that 99% of their flights have been cancelled until July or later.

Are they still flying to France this month?
 
The government is paying their employees.
Really? How did he manage that? Other companies are paying people off and the government is paying them €350 a week (unless they were well paid in which case they get nothing). How come Ryan Air are getting their employees paid?
 
I am due to fly with them to Marseille later this month. They are still selling flights there. I can "check in" online. Yet they are saying that 99% of their flights have been cancelled until July or later.

Are they still flying to France this month?

Hi SlugBreath, I reckon you'll get good odds on that from some online bookmaker.
 
Really? How did he manage that? Other companies are paying people off and the government is paying them €350 a week (unless they were well paid in which case they get nothing). How come Ryan Air are getting their employees paid?
Ah here now, you know the answer to that one. They're availing of the Covid-19 temporary wage subsidy. Perfectly entitled to of course, as many employers are also doing. But they have staff. They could accelerate the cash refunds. Legally, they should. They just chose not to. No skin off my nose. It's years since I flew with them and I've nothing booked with them. But I feel sorry for the many people for whom a flight refund would be very helpful in these tough times.
 
Ah here now, you know the answer to that one. They're availing of the Covid-19 temporary wage subsidy. Perfectly entitled to of course, as many employers are also doing.
Yes, for employees who are not working for them at the moment.
 
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