Travelers should receive an automatic reimbursement for canceled holidays abroad, such as the train delay scheme, said Transport Secretary Grant Shaps.
Shaps declined sending troops to help the holidaymakers’ process after chaos scenes during a semi-secret holiday, saying airlines and airports themselves should hire and train more staff. He said there should be a campaign “to attract people to the sector and ensure that people get paid properly”.
The transport secretary said he wanted a scheme for people to receive quick refunds, such as the national scheme used by train companies to compensate passengers for delays.
Asked if the army would be deployed if things did not improve in the next few weeks, Shaps said: “The army is not a quick solution to every problem. Secondly, they are stationed in increasing numbers in Eastern Europe, in the Baltic States, in what is a military situation and the army is primarily for that.
“Airports and airlines will have to solve this problem. The government will support them in every way, but I do not expect this to include calling up the army. “
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Speaking to the BBC’s Sunday Morning program, Shaps said further changes were coming to try to avoid such scenes for summer vacations.
“Once we accept that this is a private sector industry, we will, of course, do absolutely everything we can to make sure we help people get out this summer,” he said. “To make sure that where this does not happen, there is proper dispute resolution, a suitable charter for passengers, to make sure that this means that they can get quick and clear compensation for this or be released. on other flights.
“Because it can’t be acceptable that sometimes it’s so complicated to reschedule a flight or get your money back. I want this to be more like paying for delays on trains, where it’s an automated process.
He said it was now imperative for airlines not to resell flights, prompting some passengers to cancel their entire vacation. “It is very important that flights are not resold, for example, and I want to make sure that there is automatic compensation for passengers,” he said.
“We will work very hard with the industry from now until the summer to make sure we don’t see a repetition of these scenes. Apparently they were surprised by the way people returned to travel after two years in prison, but I’m not surprised – we kept saying, “You’re going to have to be ready for this.”
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