Worst airlines named in AirHelp ranking: SATA, EasyJet and Virgin Atlantic named

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This was published 8 years ago

Worst airlines named in AirHelp ranking: SATA, EasyJet and Virgin Atlantic named

By Soo Kim
Updated
Britain's largest airline easyjet has come in second in the world's worst airlines ranking by AirHelp.

Britain's largest airline easyjet has come in second in the world's worst airlines ranking by AirHelp.Credit: Bloomberg

Portuguese carrier SATA, based in the Azores, has come in last in a new survey ranking the world's worst airlines, with Britain's largest airline easyjet coming in at second.

Virgin Atlantic came third in the table created by AirHelp, a company providing legal help for customers making claims for delayed flights.

AirHelp rated 34 airlines according to three categories: each carrier's quality rating by Skytrax, an annual airline review service; the airline's on-time flight performance, as reported on Flightstats.com, during the last quarter of last year; and "claim processing", which considers the number of rejected flight compensation claims that were later up-held in court, and the time it takes for the airline to acknowledge, handle and pay out a successful claim. It is unknown how many passengers were surveyed for the latest rankings but the data was drawn from 3,607 compensation claims made in the final quarter of last year.

Virgin Atlantic was named among the world's worst airlines in the ranking.

Virgin Atlantic was named among the world's worst airlines in the ranking.

It can also be noted that the Skytrax rating, computed as part of AirHelp's overall score for each airline, looks at an airline's performance over a year, unlike AirHelp's "Delay Performance" score which is based on flight departure data from the last quarter of 2015. It is unclear how the difference in time period was accounted for in AirHelp's overall scores.

See also: World's worst airlines named in Skytrax rankings

Easyjet and Virgin Atlantic, which has a four-star Skytrax quality rating, were ranked worse than Ryanair (ranked 11th), which was warned by the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) last year that it faced legal action if it failed to comply with its legal responsibility to handle claims resulting from flight delays. It previously was also voted Europe's 'worst' short-haul airline and Britain's 'worst' brand for customer service by the consumer magazine Which?

Swiss Air, which also has a four-star Skytrax quality rating, and TAP Portugal rounded out the world's top five worst airlines ranked in the survey.

Both easyJet and Virgin Atlantic as well as Ryanair were named among the worst UK airlines for dealing with claims in AirHelp's survey last year, which used data from more than 235,000 passengers who have made a claim in the last two and a half years prior to the survey.

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"We do not recognise these findings," a spokesperson for easyJet said. "easyJet has been commended by its regulator the CAA for its handling of EU261 [compensation] claims and we will always pay compensation when it is due.

"We try and get back to [customers] within three working days with an answer and if payment is due, aim to have the money in their account within a further 21 days," he added.

See also: Qantas named the world's safest airline for 2016

A Virgin Atlantic spokesperson added: "Along with other airlines, we strongly question the validity of this report. We do everything we can to respond as quickly as possible and on average, pay all eligible EU261 claims 14 days after receipt.

"Unlike claims management companies that deduct up to 25 per cent of the compensation payment for themselves, we will pay the full amount of all eligible claims straight to our customer's bank account."

Nathan Stower, chief executive of the British Air Transport Association (BATA), also previously challenged the validity of AirHelp's score.

"I can confidentially predict that this 'research' will not be winning any statistical prizes. The company claims their 'score' helps passengers to better predict how they will be treated by airlines, but their data on three key areas is drawn purely from their customers and therefore is simply not representative or statistical robust," he said last year.

"Drawing conclusions from this data is highly misleading. UK airlines need to provide good customer service to attract passengers in the highly competitive markets in which they operate. When things do go wrong, most complaints are resolved amicably without passengers having to resort to the use of [claims] companies," he added.

At the other end of the spectrum, Qatar Airways was the top rated airline in the survey, followed by a host of European carriers including KLM, Air Baltic, Air France and Lufthansa respectively. British Airways, ranked ninth, was the only UK carrier to be placed among the survey's top 10 best airlines in the world.

The full list of rankings by AirHelp can be seen here.

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