Business and leisure travellers in Germany will soon find it easier to reclaim money for cancelled flights. The Centre for European Consumer Protection (ZEV) issued formal warnings on Monday against Ryanair, TAP Air Portugal and Wizz Air, accusing the carriers of unlawfully sending passengers to online travel agencies to obtain refunds. Under EU Regulation 261/2004, airlines must reimburse customers within seven days, irrespective of whether the ticket was bought directly or through an intermediary. ZEV said it had logged a spike in complaints this summer as chat-bots routinely bounced passengers back to OTAs such as eDreams or Kiwi.com. “This is a clear breach of EU law and an unacceptable delaying tactic,” the agency’s aviation lawyer Claudia Golz told broadcasters. Unless the airlines provide binding undertakings within two weeks, ZEV will seek injunctions in German courts that could trigger fines of up to €250,000 per infringement. For corporate mobility teams, the case is more than a consumer-rights footnote. Many German companies lean on online consolidators for last-minute ticketing; being forced into a refund ping-pong can paralyse travel budgets and complicate duty-of-care tracking. Travel managers should therefore review contract clauses that oblige OTAs to process refunds proactively or switch to direct NDC feeds where feasible. The warning also comes as the European Parliament finalises a broader revision of Regulation 261 that would raise compensation ceilings and shorten payment deadlines. Airlines will almost certainly lobby to water down those provisions, but Monday’s action shows national watchdogs are prepared to enforce existing rules aggressively in the interim. Legal experts note that German courts traditionally side with consumers in aviation disputes. Companies facing tight project deadlines should therefore factor in the likelihood of faster cash reimbursement in Germany compared with other EU jurisdictions—useful intelligence when deciding where to hub itineraries in the coming winter schedule.
Source: Tagesschau
