Ryanair pledges to pay compensation for delayed or cancelled flights within 10 days

Europe’s biggest budget airline will also consider automatic payouts

Ryanair has vowed to pay compensation for delayed or cancelled flights faster than any other airline.

“We will pay all valid claims within 10 days,” said the airline’s chief marketing officer, Kenny Jacobs. Currently the airline’s guide time for paying out is four weeks.

Under European passengers’ rights rules, travellers who arrive three hours or more late at their destination, or whose flight is cancelled at short notice, are entitled to compensation. For flights of under 1,500km the payout is set at €250; for longer flights, €400.

An airline need not pay when “extraordinary circumstances” are to blame. Examples include air traffic control strikes or bad weather. But mechanical faults or staffing issues are not acceptable excuses.

A special unit of 150 customer service staff has been established in Madrid to process claims.

“In the unlikely event that there is any disruption we’ll pay faster than any other airline,” said Mr Jacobs.

The Independent has received multiple complaints about the complexity of filing a claim with Ryanair, and delays in paying out. Mr Jacobs said that the claims process would be simplified and accelerated. “We want to take away any doubt that it’s difficult,” he said.

Mr Jacobs told The Independent: “It’s very black and white in terms of what’s valid and what’s not valid.”

However, many delay and cancellation incidents involve a combination of causes, leading to disagreements about whether compensation is due. Passengers who believe they have been wrongly denied a payout can take legal advice or go through Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR).

Ryanair is contemplating providing automatic payment of compensation in cases where it accepts responsibility for disruption. At present the only transport undertaking known to do so is Virgin Trains, for Advance bookings on the West Coast main line.

“It’s something that we would consider,” said Mr Jacobs. “But at this stage the process itself is going to simplify, and make that straightforward for customers, so they have less information they have to provide us with, and we’ll make the process faster.”

The Consumers’ Association is conducting an online petition calling on all airlines to implement automatic payment of valid claims. Carriers are extremely reluctant to do so, because of the high cost. Ryanair says its average fare in the current financial year is €39, less than 10 per cent of the higher payout, €400.

At present it is thought that fewer than half of eligible passengers make claims, and on some airlines the estimate is down to single figure percentages.

Ryanair has also brought in a “price promise”, saying: “Find a cheaper fare and we’ll refund the difference, plus €5 in compensation.”

But it applies only on the same airport-to-airport pair, as opposed to city-to-city; so between Stansted and Rome Ciampino, rather than all flights between London and Rome. The rival flight must leave within two hours of the Ryanair departure time.

In practice very few of the airline’s routes have head-to-head competition, and on many of those that do overlap rivals’ flights are at very different times. Between Manchester and Faro in Portugal, for example, served by both Jet2 and Ryanair, departure times are nine hours apart.

Mr Jacobs also alluded to the issues Ryanair and its passengers have encountered since the abrupt cancellation of 20,000 flights last autumn due to pilot-rostering problems.

“We’ve learned a lot about customer service over the past six months,” he said.