Airlines owe millions of pounds to passengers from unpaid refunds and expenses, an investigation from Which? has found.
Which? has revealed County Court Judgements (CCJ) collectively worth more than £4.5million have piled up against airlines including easyJet, Ryanair, Tui and Wizz Air.
A CCJ is a court order which tells you to pay money you owe.
Wizz Air has 1,601 “outstanding” CCJs worth almost £2.2million, according to Registry Trust - despite carrying fewer passengers than some of its rivals.
EasyJet has 884 “outstanding” CCJs, amounting to £611,436 - although it told Which? it now has no known unpaid CCJs and that the register has not been updated.
Trust Online, the official register of court judgments, told Which? the judgement will continue to show as “unsatisfied” even when paid, until the court records are updated.
It said defendants - airlines in this case - are responsible for providing updates about the payment status of CCJs.
Which? said Ryanair has 840 “outstanding” CCJs worth £549,892, while Tui has fewer, at 313, but they are worth almost £1.3million.
Jet2 has four “outstanding” judgments amounting to £1,434, while British Airways has 82 totalling £96,042.
Which? has called on the Government and regulators to take urgent action.
Rocio Concha, Which? Director of Policy and Advocacy, said: “The scale of court judgments piling up against major airlines is a result of a system where the odds are stacked against passengers and airlines feel empowered to routinely ignore their legal obligations to pay out refunds and compensation.
“The CAA must get tough with airlines and make clear that it will consider using all the powers at its disposal - which may include reviewing the licences of the worst offenders if appropriate."
The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) said: “Airline passengers should rightfully expect to be treated fairly by airlines, and to have their complaints and claims resolved in a quick and efficient manner.”
A spokesperson for Wizz Air told Which? it has settled more than 400 CCJs since December and said it is “working to resolve” outstanding judgements “as quickly as possible”.
The spokesperson said: “We pride ourselves on providing affordable, exciting travel opportunities and great service.
“We are sorry that, because of an unprecedented level of disruption due to the pandemic, we fell short of these expectations for some customers.
“We have learnt a lot from this challenging period and we are putting measures in place to ensure we are better prepared, including more customer services resources and revised processes.”
They added: “Third party online records are not up to date. We are currently seeking to have these records updated to reflect the progress we have made.”
EasyJet: “Our legal department has confirmed that easyJet currently has no known unpaid county court judgments.”
Ryanair, Tui and British Airways did not respond to requests for comment from Which? when asked.
