Overworked Airlines Struggles To Refund Cancelled Trips

By
Siti Hawa
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Your travel plans might be forced to change at the very last minute because of things that are beyond your control. ie. The dreaded COVID-19 outbreak that’s spreading all over the world.

You know what else might feel like it’s beyond our control? Trying to get a refund for our tickets to COVID-19 stricken places.

Customers Having A Hard Time Getting Their Money Back

According to TODAY, a 65-year-old retiree, his wife and daughter have decided to cancel their 13-day road trip across South Korea which they had booked for April.

This was due to the dramatic spike of the COVID-19 situation in South Korea. The problem he faced and I’m sure many others face now is trying to get a refund as they had purchased 3 Korean Air flight tickets for $2,200 in December.

In South Korea, the number of COVID-19 confirmed cases increased from 31 cases on 18 February to a whopping 4,212 cases as of 2 March.

They have tried to call and email Korean Air but have received no response thus far.

But before you bash these airlines, there is a reason for this:

Overworked Airlines Struggles To Refund Cancelled Trips

Although some airlines have offered its customers full refunds for flights travelling between Singapore and China or South Korea, many customers are still not able to get their refunds.

The reason? Airlines have been receiving a high volume of calls amidst the COVID-19 outbreak.

Put On Hold For Three Hours By Scoot

One customer of budget carrier Scoot said that his flight from Tianjin, China to Singapore at the beginning of February was cancelled suddenly.

In the end, he had to book several transfer flights to get home to Singapore which cost him $1,600.

He later tried to call Scoot to ask for a refund on the $400 return fare. He was forced to call in around 10 times between 2 February and 26 February and on one call he was put on hold for as long as three hours.

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He was finally told that the refund would be sent to his bank in five days time.

Scoot has told TODAY that it “sincerely apologises for the inconvenience caused and would like to assure passengers that all committed refunds will be processed within 30 business days”.

There has been a delay in processing due to the “high volume of bookings that need to be refunded, beyond the initial batch of mainland China flights that were cancelled”.

Scoot Says To Message Them Via Facebook messenger Or Through Online Feedback Form 

Instead of calling them, Scoot urged its customers to contact them via Facebook messenger or through the online feedback form.

The Scoot website says that customers travelling from 25 February to 30 April on flights to or from South Korea (excluding those whose flights originate from Taiwan) can either re-route to another destination, rebook the flight, or refund the value of the flight via a Scoot travel voucher.

SIA, on the other hand, says that for those travelling to South Korea, it would waive all change fees for customers with travel dates between 25 February and 30 April, for tickets issued on or before 25 February.

For those with travel plans to mainland China, Hong Kong and Macau, customers may have their cancellation and change fees waived for travel dates from 24 January to 30 April, for tickets issued on or before 8 February.

SIA also acknowledged that their websites and customer service hotline were facing a high volume of calls.

In other words, it’s not because the airlines want to cheat your money lah. It’s just that they’re having trouble attending to everyone at the moment. So let’s all be a bit patient, okay? After all, they’re not doing very well themselves too.

Here’s a simplified summary of the South Korea martial law that even a 5-year-old would understand:

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Siti Hawa
Email: [email protected]