ritish Airways has been fined nearly £1 million by the US authorities over claims it didn't pay refunds for cancelled flights.

The US Transportation Department mentioned in a authorized doc the airline didn't “provide timely refunds to passengers” for deserted or rescheduled flights to and from the nation throughout the coronavirus pandemic.

British Airways mentioned it had “acted lawfully at all times” after being hit with the 1.1 million US greenback (£878,000) high-quality on Thursday, and refuted the claims.

A consent order from the division learn: “From March to November 2020, British Airways’ website instructed consumers to contact the carrier via phone to ‘discuss refund options’, including for flights the carrier cancelled or significantly changed.

“However, consumers were unable to get through to customer service agents when calling the carrier for several months during this period because British Airways failed to maintain adequate functionality of its customer service phone lines. There was also no way to submit a refund request through the carrier’s website during this period.

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“Also, from March to November 2020, British Airways had misleading information on its website which led consumers to inadvertently request travel vouchers instead of refunds.

“Since March 2020, the Department has received over 1,200 complaints alleging that British Airways failed to provide timely refunds after cancelling or significantly changing consumers’ flights to or from the United States.

“British Airways has received thousands more complaints and refund requests directly from consumers. British Airways’ failure to establish, for several months, a readily accessible method for consumers to request refunds for flights the carrier cancelled or significantly changed caused significant challenges and delays in thousands of consumers receiving required refunds.”

The division mentioned the high-quality “establishes a strong deterrent to future similar unlawful practices”.

British Airways is being credited just below £500,000 in direction of the penalty as a result of in 2020 and 2021 it paid greater than 40 million US {dollars} in refunds to clients with non-refundable tickets.

The airline mentioned: “We’re very sorry that at the height of the unprecedented pandemic – when we were unfortunately forced to cancel thousands of flights and close some call centres due to government restrictions – our customers experienced slightly longer wait times to reach customer service teams.

“During this period, we acted lawfully at all times and offered customers the flexibility of rebooking travel on different dates, or claiming a refund if their flights were cancelled.

“To date, we have issued more than five million refunds since the start of the pandemic.”