Automatic refunds: for late trains, not planes

Late train? You can expect an automatic refund, if you happen to be the lucky one-in-14,000 passengers on the railways of Britain who qualifies. As you may have read in The Independent, Virgin Trains now pays compensation if one of its trains arrives 30 minutes or more behind schedule. No more filling in forms: the West Coast train operator will credit the card used to buy the ticket within a few days of a delay.

Terms and conditions, inevitably, apply to “automatic delay repay”. Fortunately I have been on half-a-dozen delayed trains in the past fortnight and have therefore had plenty of time to study the rules. To benefit, you must be travelling on an Advance ticket – that's one for a specific train rather than a flexible Anytime or Off Peak fare. It must be bought online direct from the train operator, rather than from any other source. And the journey must be “pure” Virgin Trains, not involving a connection with another train operator.

An impressive customer-friendly move by Sir Richard Branson's organisation, nevertheless.

Yet the initiative may make uncomfortable reading for airlines, because presumably the same technological fix could work for planes as well as trains. It raises the possibility that carriers might be expected to issue automatic delay and cancellation payments to passengers. Could the technique spread from rail to air within the Virgin empire, which has interests in both forms of transport? I asked Virgin Atlantic if the airline would follow suit.

“We always endeavour to do the right thing by our customers and this includes resolving any issues as quickly as possible,” a spokeswoman for the airline told me. “However, as compensation and duty of care payments can vary for each unique circumstance, currently we do not issue payments automatically.”

Other airlines echoed this response. Monarch told me: “There may be extraordinary circumstances which mean the cause of the delay was outside the control of the airline and therefore compensation is not payable.”

Pay-day groans

While the maximum a rail traveller can expect is a refund of the fare actually paid, airline passengers can quite easily profit from a delay thanks to the benevolent provisions of EC261, the European rules on passengers' rights.

Brian Lewis writes with an excellent example: “I paid £75 return to Budapest. The flight back was six hours late. I was a bit cross, but I now find I am 'entitled' to €400 compensation. How can this level of compensation be sensible? A part refund would be fine but €400 is nonsense.”

The airline faces a potential £50,000 hit on the late flight, with the same liability again to passengers delayed on their way to the Hungarian capital. So, it may well try to dodge a pay-out by pleading “extraordinary circumstances”.

Dr Lewis says: “I have submitted a claim which, if successful, will go mostly to charity but I suspect I will, quite understandably, receive a long, impenetrable legal response.”

Slip sliding away

Christine Griffiths got a legal brush-off after her easyJet flight from Geneva to Gatwick was delayed by a pretty extraordinary circumstance. On a freezing January night, the plane was waiting on the ground for de-icing. A pilot opened the cabin door to see what was going on. Alas the door was “armed” – that is, with its emergency chute poised to deploy automatically. Before it could be fixed the airport closed for the night, delaying the flight to the next day.

Ms Griffiths' claim was rejected by easyJet as “extraordinary”. The delay was clearly unusual, but there is a caveat in the condition that airlines can avoid paying compensation only if the circumstances “could not have been foreseen even if the airline took all reasonable precautions”.

I put it to easyJet that, if a member of the crew opens a door and inadvertently “pops a slide”, it is entirely foreseeable that a delay will ensue. The airline now says it will settle the claim.