BATA response to the announcement by the Civil Aviation Authority on Alternative Dispute Resolution

August 11th, 2016

 

Responding to the announcement by the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) that 20 airlines have signed up to CAA-approved Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) bodies to resolve passenger complaints, Tim Alderslade, Chief Executive of the British Air Transport Association (BATA), the trade body for UK-registered airlines, said:

“UK airlines need to provide good customer service to attract passengers in the highly competitive markets in which they operate. When things do go wrong, most complaints are resolved amicably without passengers having to resort to contacting the CAA or taking a complaint to court. For example, BATA’s member airlines served 138 million passengers in 2014, but the CAA PACT team handled just 11,500 complaints relating to our members in the year to March 2015, an approximate complaint rate of less than 0.1%.   

“Following the ADR Directive and its implementation by the UK Government, ADR was made available in the aviation sector on a voluntary basis. A number of carriers have already committed to using ADR while others will be carefully considering it as an option, ultimately basing their decision on what is best for their customers.”    

ENDS