headingwest

It depends on what you mean by winner. If losing the trust of thousands of potential customers (exactly when you are trying to kick-start the business) is being a winner, then I doubt it will bring happy results. Once the vouchers have been redeemed, will those passengers come back?

powergean

i am sure, passangers will come back, because Aegean is a top airlines. Not easy to found better, connect Greece with other countrys.Plus most of the other airlines has the same policy with refunds and vouchers.

headingwest

Other companies are also pushing vouchers, but tell me one other airline that is flatly refusing to - or even talk about - giving refunds?

It comes to something when even Ryanair are behaving in a more ethical way. There are a lot of things I really like about Aegean, but regarding their legal obligations during this pandemic, they have really done themselves no good.

djjaguar64

KLM

powergean

+ All lufthansa group, Ryanair also, since last month, Wizzair, Tap.......15 countrys going against the europian decision, The court will keep mutch longer, then one year:-))

headingwest

Austrian Website:


Wizzair website:


Lufthansa are also giving refunds, but you have to insist (I have a refund being processed now). Michael O'Leary from Ryanair has publicly stated that they will refund anyone who wants money back, and their website also has the usual refund function. TAP are offering vouchers with a 20% bonus, but they will refund if you push them hard.

So stop spreading false information - like Aegean aren't breaking EU law!

KLM I did not know about.

East_and_West

I can confirm that Lufthansa are giving refunds (or, more precisely placing you in their refund queue) if one is persistent enough. It took me three back and forths, but it was doable. SAS had no problem to refund two cancelled TATL return tickets within a week, and placing me in the queue for refunding my cancelled short-haul flights.

A3 on the other hand haven't even replied to my communication. I have contacted them twice after filing my request, and still no word from them. As a loyal customer I believe that at least I deserve a reply.

The worst part is them uprightly lying to me. When I first called around March 20th to request a refund for two cancelled RT tickets, I was told that they were not issuing any refunds since March 11th, the date when WHO declared a pandemic. After arguing that this claim had no legal, contractual, or even logical basis, I reminded the phone agent that just a couple of days ago they had agreed to refund me a cancelled flight. At that point the agent admitted that this was what they had been told to reply, and could do absolutely nothing about it. She then advised me to contact customer service through their online form. I realized that nothing would come out from giving a hard time to that overwhelmed agent, so I thanked her, hang up and wrote to A3. And guess what... Still no reply, even after writing again to them a second time, and contacting them on the phone.

Withholding your customers' money against the law is one level of abhorrent corporate malpractice. Attempting to work your way around it by trying to trick your top-tier customers with childish lies, and then completely ignoring them, takes it to a whole new level. Normally I would be furious at any company for that, but when it comes to Aegean I just feel annoyed and disappointed, perhaps because I expected them to be much better that. As much as I like flying A3, I think it would be hard for me to recommend them to anyone from now on.

headingwest

After reading some of the comments here over the last few days, I thought I'd see if it's true that they are ignoring customers. Yesterday I sent a DM on Twitter asking about refund options, they replied in just over an hour with the standard template response - we are offering vouchers, blah, blah. So I sent another message saying that I wanted a refund and not a voucher. Again they replied WITHIN an hour, the 2nd standard template response - the Greek state recently published a legislative act, blah, blah. I then sent a third message asking if Greece had exited from the European Union...No reply...not even after 2 subsequent messages. So this obviously is the tactic that they have chosen, to simply ignore anyone who refuses to accept vouchers.

So I completely agree with you East_and_West, their general behaviour is quite abhorrent. I also expected much more from Aegean because for a long time I've considered their customer services to be exceptional. This pandemic has definitely shown them in a different light.

powergean

Dosent mater, what they saying, i have friends, they try to get them money back, more then 2 month, from wizzair and Ryan. Every second week companys sending them letter, offering vouchers. Not talking about the money.

ermis177

Unfortunately many companies are playing this dirty game. I have a voucher from Iberia. When my flight got cancelled I rang up and I was told that my only 2 options are a voucher or rebook. The website says that they do offer refunds... Also it looks like that LH group does not offer any refunds, at least Lufthansa and Swiss. Some countries have passed laws that a voucher is fine instead of a refund. Some companies are ignoring EU law and a very few small percentage of companies are actually offering a proper refund.

giorginho

I had 6 tickets for early April (all routeswwithin the EU), airlines concerned were LATAM, Lufthansa and Air Europa, all booked via OTA's, all canceled by mid-March. So far I've gotten either a "promise" or a "we'll start with the process but won't promise anything" for 4 of those tickets and heard nothing regarding the other 2. So far (about 2 months after my first request for refunds) I have received 0,00 refund.
For almost all the tickets I have at least once (mostly twice) received a response claiming "we're not responsible".
Just saying...
Also: I spent over 2 hours watching that press conference of the European commission the other day, that lady really got cornered by the journalists regarding the breach of the EU-wide law, but her response was even worse than Aegean's, constantly repeating herself with useless information, trying to dodge the question up to the point the moderator decided to exclude all similar future questions and basically trying to hide the issue under the carpet with a "plan" that will simply buy the airlines and states more time, before forcing refunds with sanction threats. However my feeling was that their embarrassment must have been such that they will be forced to take measures sooner than they planned or they risk total humiliation at the next press conference.

powergean

i think, they will do nothing, because they know exactly, that companys dont have the money, to refund tickets , before they start to make profit again. They also know, if they forcing them to pay now, they will not, or only if goverments giving money for that. 15 countrys are more then the half in EU, and they not stupid, to wote against them self, also they don want them own companys bankrupt , with millions of workers around Europe, and 1000 other reason.

baggage tag

If you paid for the flights by credit card there is always the option of a chargeback. I had a flight cancelled and the money was refunded through the bank within a few days.

ClanJ

Just wondering has the ability to online change flex fares been turned off. Have allways been able to change online before?

powergean

i dont know, in countrys, like Greece example, where the government protecting the companys, by thye low ( no cash refund, only voucher) , if the bank can chargeback your money. Some people said, in these forum also, that bank told them, after the new low, that better take voucher, not possible chargeback for cancelled flights.