Queues that tailed back far beyond the check-in counter, mountains of bags strewn across the floors of international airports, and cancellations that saw people camping on airport floors for days. Yes, we’re talking about traveling in the summer of 2022.
An overall lack of staff across the travel industry saw a summer of chaos after airlines and airports struggled to accommodate the surge in vacations in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. After many redundancies across the sector in 2020, staffing levels were still catastrophically low during the peak traveling season of 2022.
Add staffing strikes from prominent carriers, such as Lufthansa and Scandinavian Airlines into the mix, and you’ve got a recipe for disaster.
While you may have written off your vacation experience as a travel nightmare and vowed to never jet off without an AirTag again, you could be owed up to €600 for your experience.
As many as eight million passengers who have traveled since May 2022 are eligible for a payout, meaning you could be among those due several hundred euros.
Here is a rundown of the countries that were most affected by the cancellations and delays.
The UK topped the chart with over 30,000 disruptions, followed by Germany, Spain, Turkey, and Italy, all of which had over 20,000 disturbances throughout the summer.
The most disrupted airline was the budget provider Easyjet, which operates up to 1,700 flights across Europe every day. Also impacted were passengers of Turkish Airlines, Lufthansa, Air France, and Wizz Air.
If you departed from London Gatwick, Frankfurt International, Istanbul Ataturk, Munich International, or Paris Charles de Gaulle airports, you could also be among those entitled to a payout.
Now the summer is well and truly over, and we’re all starting to hunker down for a quiet winter snuggled up under a blanket, it’s the perfect time to claim the money that is rightfully yours. AirHelp assists passengers in finding out whether they can request compensation in a quick and easy way. Simply input your flight details, and the site will tell you whether you’ve got a claim or not.
A €600 cheque ($700) could pay for your next trip abroad, so don’t delay, find out whether you could be among the eight million travelers owed a chunk of money.
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