Maybe it’s the winter season, or perhaps it’s just bad luck, but two friends of mine are currently wrestling with airline customer services to get compensation – one for luggage lost for a fortnight, and another for a long delay.
There is one clear lesson from my huge Wizzair delays in March, and the subsequent compensation of €250 I managed to get: the ONLY reason I was successful reasonably swiftly was because I managed to get the e-mail addresses of 40 passengers on the flight, all of us delayed and in the same situation. I felt a bit crazy at the time, standing there in Warsaw airport and appealing for passengers’ e-mail addresses, but doing so had two effects. Firstly, it increased the communication among the group on the spot. Secondly, when we all complained about the same thing, using the same arguments and the same forms, and with the same threat to take Wizzair to the Polish Civil Aviation authority then the airline had to cough up. It would have been *much* harder to achieve the same result as a solo traveller.
So once the delays have climbed beyond 3 hours, or when everyone is searching for lost luggage, get hold of a pen and paper and start noting down names and e-mail addresses. I reckon it’s your best way to get a good result!
(You could of course sing a song – but not all of us can do a United Breaks Guitars!)
