Europe's worst airlines slammed by Brits for 'treating customers with disdain'

24 February 2024 , 00:02

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Wizz Air has come at the bottom of the pile (Image: Getty Images)

Wizz Air has been crowned as the worst airline in Europe for a second year in a row.

The budget aviation firm has been lambasted by customers having received a flood of complaints about delays and poor customer service over the past 12 months.

Close to half of those who flew on the Hungarian airline reported issues, according to a Which? survey, with just 63% of its flights on time between October 2022 and September 2023, Civil Aviation Authority data show.

Around 2% of its flights were delayed by over three hours - higher than most of its rivals. The airline received low star ratings across the board, scoring just one star out of a possible five for customer service. One respondent reported it was "impossible to communicate with the airline" about their flight cancellation, while another lamented that Wizz Air was "extremely unhelpful and unresponsive" when they needed assistance.

Its failure in the past to promptly pay compensation and refunds, leading to multiple outstanding County Court Judgments has been widely documented - though the airline now says it has hired more staff to improve its processes.

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The survey let airlines customers have their say (Getty Images/iStockphoto)

Wizz Air has pushed back against the ranking, arguing that the "survey methodology is misleading and the results are not representative", and that not enough Wizz Air customers were spoken to for the Which? survey.

Marion Geoffroy, UK managing director at Wizz Air UK, said: "The results are most certainly not what we are hearing from our customer surveys. It is unclear how Which? can come to these conclusions when only 1.15% of their respondents said they flew with Wizz Air." The airline boss admitted that the company's performance in 2022 "was not up to our standards", which has led the company to invest "more than £90 million to rectify this".

She added: "We completed 99.23% of our flights in the period covering October 2022-September 2023, and in the last fiscal year, our on-time performance was better than all but one of our major competitors. Over the same fiscal period, we saw a 67.4% reduction in the number of cancellations and more than 90% of refunds and claims were processed within five days. This is some of the strongest data across the whole industry."

Which? surveyed travellers’ experiences of flying in the last year, analysing results for over 10,000 flights in total. Passengers rated their carriers on seven criteria, including customer service, value for money, seat comfort and food and drink. A customer score was calculated based on overall satisfaction and likelihood to recommend.

Close behind Wizz Air with a customer score of just 47% is Ryanair. It too received an unimpressive run of results, scoring just one star for seat comfort, food and drink and customer service. In the latter category, respondents were particularly critical, with one passenger saying the airline "treats customers with disdain", while another said that the airline simply "doesn't do customer service." The airline scored just two stars for the boarding experience, cabin cleanliness and cabin environment, and received three stars for value for money.

Though Ryanair had a similar proportion of delayed flights to Wizz Air (62% according to CAA data), its cancellation rate was more positive, with just 0.8% cancelled at short notice. Iberia, Vueling and British Airways completed the bottom five for short haul, with customer scores of 49, 53 and 56 per cent respectively.

Jet2 meanwhile took first spot among short haul airlines for the third consecutive year. The airline topped the table with an impressive customer score of 81%, and received a full five stars for its customer service. Jet2 also has among the lowest rate of last-minute cancellations of any airlines in the survey, with just 0.5% cancelled at short notice, according to CAA data.

Best to worst European airlines

(Airline, overall customer score)

1. Jet2: 81%
2. Icelandair: 74%
3. Norwegian: 74%
4. Turkish Airlines: 73%
5. Logan Air: 72%
6. Swiss: 71%
7. Finnair: 68%
8. TAP Portugal: 67%
9. Aer Lingus: 66%
10. Air France: 65%
11. SAS: 64%
12. Aegean Airlines: 63%
13. KLM: 62%
14. EastJet: 59%
15. TUI: 59%
16. Air Malta: 58%
17. Lufthansa: 57%
18. BA: 56%
19. Vueling Airlines: 53%
20. Iberia: 49%
21. Ryanair: 47%
22. Wizz Air: 44%

A spokesperson for British Airways said: "We always work hard to get our customers to where they need to be on time. Like all airlines though, over the last year we've experienced several factors outside of our control that have had an adverse impact on our customers, such as adverse weather and Air Traffic Control industrial action. We apologise to customers for any disruption they've faced during these challenging periods and again thank them for their understanding."

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A spokesperson for Rynair said: "Ryanair has industry leading punctuality with avg. on-time performance of 87% in 2023, despite UK punctuality being severely impacted by the inefficient NATS and its incompetent CEO, whose ATC system has collapsed twice this year delaying thousands of flights and millions of passengers travelling to/from the UK."

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Milo Boyd