‘Don’t let them stonewall you’: Father reveals how he got Wizz Air to pay him £4,500 for cancelling his family holiday to Portugal after months of chasing a refund – by sending BAILIFFS to Luton airport
- Russell Quirk, from Essex, said the cancelled flights cost him £4,500 in expenses
- The property expert said to persevere with big companies to get what’s owed
A father revealed how he got Wizz Air to pay him £4,500 for cancelling his family holiday to Portugal after months of chasing a refund by sending bailiffs to Luton Airport.
Russell Quirk, a property expert from Brentwood in Essex, said he was forced to buy new flights for the following day after the cancellations.
He said: ‘My message is, where big companies stonewall you, if you persevere you can get what is owed to you.’
After waiting months for Wizz Air to reimburse the money, Mr Quirk went to court before sending bailiffs to the airport.
Wizz Air apologised for the cancellation and paid Mr Quirk his money, saying the airline ‘fell short of our own aspirations and our customers’ expectations’.
Russell Quirk, a property expert from Brentwood in Essex, said he was forced to buy new flights for the following day after the cancellations
Wizz Air apologised for the cancellation and paid Mr Quirk his money, saying the airline ‘fell short of our own aspirations and our customers’ expectations’
Mr Quirk originally booked the flights from Luton Airport to Faro in January last year for a May half-term family holiday with his three daughters and wife.
On the morning of their flight he received a message from Wizz Air saying it had been cancelled.
‘There was no explanation, no alternative offered and no apology’, he told the BBC.
‘I had to wake my three daughters and tell them we weren’t going on holiday – they were very upset.’
As the hotel, transfers and airport lounge had already been paid for, Mr Quirk was forced to book another flight for the following day, which totaling the lost money on other expenses left him £4,500 out of pocket.
After returning to the UK from his holiday Mr Quirk said he tried to get compensation from Wizz Air.
But it took nearly two months for the cost of his original flights to be returned along with other legal compensation.
He said Wizz Air repeatedly ignored his claims for the extra £4,500 he had spent as ‘consequential losses’.
The budget airline company then ‘ignored’ the judgement made against them after Mr Quirk took the case to the county court, so bailiffs were then sent in to the Wizz Air desk at Luton Airport.
The airline could either hand over the money or the equivalent cost in goods, for example in the form of chairs, tables or computers. Wizz Air ended up paying Mr Quirk the money.
After returning to the UK from his holiday Mr Quirk said he tried to get compensation from Wizz Air
The budget airline company then ‘ignored’ the judgement made against them after Mr Quirk took the case to the county court, so bailiffs were then sent in to the Wizz Air desk at Luton Airport
The property expert said it cost roughly £180 to take his case to court and £60 to send in the bailiffs.
He added: ‘Increasingly businesses are thinking they can treat customers like dirt and I’m determined to eradicate that.’
A spokesperson for Wizz Air said due to unprecedented levels of disruption across Europe and the UK in the summer of 2022 ‘we fell short of our own aspirations’.
They added: ‘When things went wrong, we did not react quickly enough to manage the high volume of customer claims that resulted from this disruption.
‘We are sorry about this and we are working to ensure that our customers’ experience with Wizz is better this year.’
The airline assured that since December, it has paid all county court judgements which went against the company and is continuing to settle claims.