| Consumers complaining most for unfair charges of penalties and delayed refund process when they cancel flight bookings | |||||
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| Regit Date | 2017-04-14 13:10:53 | Count | 243 | ||
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In line with higher travel demands and aggressive business expansions by low cost carriers (LCCs), the aviation industry has showed a steady growth over the past few years. However, it is also acknowledged that consumer complaints against air carriers and their services have been rapidly increasing. For the last 10 years (2007-2016), the consumer complaints related flight passenger services filed at Korea Consumer Agency (KCA) reached 4,470. In 2016, total of 1,262 consumer complaints against air carriers have been filed at KCA, up 40.2% from 2015 and twenty-two times higher than in 2007. According to KCA, customer complaints against the national air carriers (621 cases) outnumbered those against foreign air carriers (498) in 2016 while the complaints against the LCCs were larger than those against the full service carriers (FSCs). To be specific, the customer complaints against the national LCCs (413) topped the list last year, followed by those against foreign FSCs (274), foreign LCCs (224) and the national FSCs (208). By damage type, Korean flight passengers have complained most (602 cases) for unfair charges of penalties and delayed refund process when they cancelled their flight bookings. Delayed departure/arrival and canceled flight stood at second (267), followed by lost or damaged baggage (92) and failed onboard due to lack of information (31). For the disputes related to refund, the LCCs have faced with more consumer complaints (396) than the FSCs (206) in 2016. In particular, it is revealed that about 75.5% of total consumer complaints against the foreign LCCs filed at KCA last year was related to the refund disputes. Against the back drop, KCA advises consumers to carefully review all the terms and conditions as well as notifications when purchasing flight tickets. The consumer protection agency also recommends consumers to reconfirm their flight schedules with respected air carriers before departure, to standby at the boarding gate 30-40 minutes before departure and to immediately notify local employees or desks of lost/damaged baggage.
Source: Korea Consumer Agency 2017.4.14 Press Release
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