Wizz Air pays out £1.2m in compensation claims after regulator probe

Wizz Air has been forced to pay out £1.2m to passengers whose claims for compensation were falsely rejected after flight delays in the chaotic summer of 2022.

The UK’s Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) stepped in last July and ordered the budget carrier to review thousands of claims after a record number of complaints from passengers.

The payments were made after around 6,000 applications were reviewed for a second time out of 25,000 claims.

Airlines are required by law to cover the cost of replacement flights for travellers when they cancel a flight and can't provide another quickly.

Passengers across Europe were left stranded as air traffic control strikes and staff shortages after the industry laid off thousands of workers during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Wizz, which was the worst airline for flight delays in 2021 & 2022, was also subject to a multitude of County Court claims from frustrated passengers.

In response, Wizz did not mention the compensation payouts, but said it had enhanced its claim handling system by incorporating an automated refund process, spent £90m to improve its performance, contracted four new call centres and identified and paid “all known” County Court Judgements.

Reporting by Frank Prenesti for Sharecast.com