Airlines seek compensation for volcano chaos
Wednesday June 2, 2010 - Email this article to a friend

Easyjet says that on Friday it will unveil an "exciting technological breakthrough" to end widespread disruption to the airline industry.

The airline will unveil the details at a press conference on Friday.

It will given by the Easyjet CEO, Andy Harrison, and Andrew Haines, CEO of the Civil Aviation Authority.

In April the sky was closed for an unprecedented 6 days. 

£10m was lost and many millions of passengers disrupted.  There have been sporadic closures since as the cloud threatens but not on the same scale.

This week representatives from Easyjet, Ryanai, BA, Virgin Atlantic,  , Flybe, Jet2, BMI, Monarch, Flybe and some tour operator's airlines, including ones owned by ski operators, met the new coalition government's Transport Secretary, Philip Hammond, to ask for compensation after the ash cloud problems.

Compensation claims

They argued that the airlines, and its passengers, should not have to pick up the cost of the decisions made by the aviation authorities.

They also petitioned the government to change the rules whereby the airlines have to pay for the cost of looking after stranded passengers.

They argued the rules were set up to deal with single flight cancellations or a day's disruption.

Not for a 6-day total shut down of international airspace.

All the airlines argued that the problems come at a time of real difficulty in the airline industry as it suffers from a world-wide downturn and deep recession in aviation.

In a separate development RyanAir has reported a pre-tax profit of £289m.

Last year it made a loss for the first time.  The figures do not include the cost of the ash cloud, estimated at €41.5m for the airline.

Ryanair is set to raise its baggage charges in July and August from £15 an item to £20.

Shareholders, including the chief executive Michael O'Leary are about to get a one-off multi-million pound dividend pay out.

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