Vueling owes €224 million in passenger compensation says Skycop

The Spanish low-cost airline Vueling, which operates daily flights to Lisbon from Madrid, allegedly owes around €224 million in compensation to passengers for delayed and cancelled flights.

According to Skycop, the specialists in airline industry consumer debt collecting, claims settlement and legal consultancy, more than 14% of Vueling flights between January and February arrived late at their destination.
At the end of February the consumer flights compensation watchdog formally protested against the “unjust treatment of Vueling Airlines towards its passengers”.
The intention was to call the company’s attention to the delays and cancellations and raise questions on issues which it claims the airline is trying to hide.
The campaign which was conducted on radio and in the press was received with anger by the airline which Skycop claims tried to pressure it into taking the campaign off the airwaves.
In 2018, Skycop says 2883 flights from Vueling were cancelled and 1069 were delayed for three hours or more affecting 592,800 passengers in total across Europe, including Portugal.
Moreover, according to data from the Official Guide to Airline Companies from OAG Aviation Worldwide Ltd which publishes monthly Time Performance Reports for Airlines and Airports, 2019 so far does not seem to be any better.
In the first two months of the year, 14.7% of 27,292 flights were delayed — or one in six flights.
“At Skycop we cannot permit Vueling to continue to treat its passengers in this way,” says Lukas Rasciauskas, CEO of Skycop.
“After noticing the support we got from passengers for this campaign, we decided to begin its second phase; this time online and in Spain, focusing on the “lottery” that passengers face when they buy a Vueling ticket,” he added.
Vueling is said to currently owe €224 million in compensation to its passengers for delayed or cancelled flights for 2018.
The Spanish airline has also come under flack from the Aerotime News Hub which reported the Skycop campaign: “In late February we stood up to Vueling’s unfair customer treatment. We aimed to get their attention and bring issues they were running from to light. And we succeeded. Unfortunately, their reaction to the problem was not what we hoped and Vueling continues breaking customers’ hearts.
Vueling will not operate four of its routes this summer from/to Portugal that it ran in 2018. These are Barcelona-Funchal, Amsterdam-Porto, Zurich-Lisbon and Zurich-Porto. Analysts have explained these and many other reductions in service as the company’s precaution against the “near collapse” of its operation at high season, as indeed happened in 2016 when Vueling was accused of causing chaos at Barcelona airport.
Last year Vueling had to cancel 222 flights, 16 of which were to and from Portugal due to a pilot strike that took place between 3-4 May 2018.
Contacted by Essential Business, Vueling press spokesperson Joel Márquez García stated, “We are not going to be making any statement at present. The issue is being dealt with by our legal department.”