Austrian Airlines accelerates payment of ticket refunds

• Each week several thousand tickets worth millions are being reimbursed
• Austrian Airlines plans to clear the backlog over the next eight weeks
• CCO Andreas Otto: “Every customer who applied for a refund will get it.”

The Service Centre of Austrian Airlines is faced with a historic volume of inquiries. This is due to the temporary cessation of Austrian Airlines flight operations as well as the ongoing required flight cancellations related to landing bans, which are new or have been extended at short notice. Austria’s national airline would like to apologise to all affected customers for the resulting delays, especially in processing refunds.

“The global coronavirus pandemic has posed unprecedented challenges to the aviation sector. Our colleagues in the Service Centre are working full steam to process all inquiries and applications. At present millions of euros in refunds are being carried out each week, corresponding to several thousand tickets. Until now, in this way 40 percent of all refund requests have already been processed”, explains Austrian Airlines CCO Andreas Otto.

All remaining applications for refunds submitted up until now should be processed over the next eight weeks. “We are well aware of the fact that the current situation is not satisfactory for our passengers. That is why we want to apologise for this. Every passenger who applied for a refund will get his or her money back”, ensures CCO and Executive Board member Otto. The airline asks customers who have already submitted reimbursement requests to please not call the airline again on this matter, in order to keep the telephone lines clear for customers who would like to travel in the near future.

Passengers whose flights were cancelled and who do not want to make use of the rebooking options can apply for a refund using the online form on the Austrian Airlines website. Passengers who booked tickets up until May 15, 2020, for journeys with an original date of travel up to April 30, 2021, have the possibility to have their tickets held in abeyance until January 31, 2021. The rebooked journey can then take place up until the end of 2021. Tickets that were or will be booked from 16 May to 31 August 2020 can be rebooked once. Passengers will find information on rebooking possibilities at www.austrian.com.

The refunds disbursed to travel agencies are also in full swing. “We have increased all available capacities to a maximum level. In the meantime, travel agencies have already been reimbursed for about two-thirds of all their bookings”, CCO Andreas Otto concludes.