A passenger cough up extra HK$5000 after an airline changes flight without her consent

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The report over airlines and passengers bargaining conflicts has surged in recent time.

A recent case involved an airline which make a passenger cough up an additional HK$5,000 in order to safe her seat that she had originally secured to Toronto from Hong Kong via Vancouver after her booking was shifted to the following day without her consent, the Consumer Council revealed.

According to the Hong Kong Consumer watchdog on Wednesday, the woman called the airline but “received no justifiable response”. This caused a serious delays in her itinerary, including missing a medical appointment.

Therefore, she lodged a complaint to the council which intervened and pushed the airline to offer her compensation.

It was reported that the woman’s issue was just one of the recently common cases as the number of complaints surge over flight bookings consumer council has received so far this year. This has instigated a warning for travellers to be vigilant.

Complaints more than doubled to 1,537 in the first 10 months of 2023 compared with 727 in the same period last year, the watchdog reported.

Council chief executive Gilly Wong Fung-han said the steep rise in cases could be attributed to the relaxation of Covid-related travel restrictions and Hongkongers’ love of travelling.

“There may also be gaps in expectations and service quality if airlines’ back-end operations are not fully ready or their customer services have not fully recovered yet,” she said.

Budget airlines accounted for 64 per cent of the complaints, with the rest involving traditional carriers.

Japan, country that is highly popular with Hong Kong travellers had the booking destination with the highest number of complaints at 354, while Thailand had 49 and the United Kingdom 28.

Wong said price disputes caused one-third of the complaints and 600 were related to changes in tickets. Service delays were another major cause for complaints.

航空公司未經乘客同意更改航班，乘客多付港幣5000元

最近一段時間，有關航空公司和乘客討價還價衝突的報告激增。

消費者委員會表示，最近發生的一起案件涉及一名乘客，航空公司在未經乘客同意的情況下將預訂改期至次日後，向乘客額外支付5,000港元，以保住她原本從香港經溫哥華飛往多倫多的座位。揭示了。

據香港消費者監管機構週三稱，該女子致電該航空公司，但「沒有收到合理的答复」。 這導致她的行程嚴重延誤，包括錯過醫療預約。

因此，她向市議會提出投訴，市議會介入並敦促航空公司向她提供賠償。

據報道，該女子的問題只是最近常見的案例之一，消費者委員會今年以來收到的有關航班預訂的投訴數量激增。 這提醒旅客保持警覺。

該監管機構報告稱，2023 年前 10 個月，投訴數量增加了一倍多，達到 1,537 起，而去年同期為 727 起。

市議會行政長官黃鳳漢表示，病例急劇上升可能是由於與新冠病毒相關的旅行限制的放寬以及香港人對旅行的熱愛。

她說：“如果航空公司的後端業務沒有完全準備好，或者客戶服務尚未完全恢復，那麼期望和服務品質也可能存在差距。”

廉價航空公司佔投訴的 64%，其餘涉及傳統航空公司。

最受香港旅客歡迎的國家是日本，投訴數量最多，達354起，泰國有49起，英國有28起。

Wong表示，三分之一的投訴是由價格糾紛引起的，其中600起與門票變更有關。 服務延誤是投訴的另一個主要原因。