Thank God for the freedom of speech and the internet! At least we can share our resentment for what is probably the worst airline on the planet!
// September 9th, 2009 // frontpage, letters
Letter from “Dan” sent to us on 09/08/2009:
Here is my story, in progress, as I am committed to do everything in my power to make it right!
To start off, I’d like to point out that this was our honeymoon flight, Cluj – Venice, to start off what should have been the beginning of our beautiful married life. I am a Platinum Star Alliance Member.
August 25th, 2009 10:30 AM: we got in a hurry at the CLJ airport, traffic and a new terminal barely visible made us get there 45 minutes before scheduled departure. Shock when we got to the check in desk, THERE WAS NO ONE THERE!!! Not a single person from WIZZ Air!!!
August 25th, 2009 10:32 AM: shocked and in disbelief, I rushed to the WIZZ ticketing counter to ask someone to get us boarding passes. Shock again, when the agent told us “tough luck”, grudgingly showing us a big sign that said that check in closes 40 min before departure. When I said there’s 43 minutes to departure and we have no luggage, he simply walked away….
August 25th, 2009 10:35 AM: frantically I called WIZZ Air Customer (or should I say lack of Customer) Service… for 60 EURO cents a minutes, I got to experience the worst customer service of my life!!! It ended in the lady agent slamming the phone in my face!!!!!! Ouch….
August 25th, 2009 10:38 AM: after paying about 3 EUROs to be abused over the phone, I realized that we might not make the flight… none of my desperate calls or my wife’s tears to the security desk, the ticketing agents or any person that seemed remotely official to call someone from WIZZ Air from the gate to give us our boarding passes had any luck…. We were being denied boarding this flight!!!!
August 25th, 2009 10:40 AM: back at the ticketing desk, I tried to see what flight accommodation they can provide us, considering that we have just been denied boarding our scheduled flight. Now comes the shock of all shocks, the mother of all surprises, when the agent told us that the next scheduled flight will be 2 days from now and we will be charged 120 EUROs for the both of us!!!! If we wanted to leave that day, there was only one option, to buy a new ticket and be re-routed through Germany. And we needed to be fast as the flight was leaving at 12:00 PM. By the way, the price for this was a whopping EUR 1,300!!!!!!!! Ouch, ouch….
My jaw dropped and I tried to explain that there are international regulations concerning denied boarding situations (didn’t knew at the time Regulation (EC) No 261/2004, but I am a frequent flyer and I know in the US all airlines are trying to accommodate passengers in their flights or code-share flights in situations like this.
August 25th, 2009 11:10 AM: we had no choice….. we paid the EUR 1,300 and got on board Lufthansa flight to Venice through Munich. Star Alliance partner Lufthansa had no issue checking us in 45 minutes before departure…..
So now, I’m left fighting WIZZ Air for some retribution for this “unpleasant situation” as they referred to it in their reply to my claim request. I’m planning on cancelling the credit card payment for the tickets, that covers about $250 and trying to recoup the rest through Regulation (EC) No 261/2004 either by suing them in small claims court in the US or reaching out to the Romanian authorities. If anyone has any experience as to what the best way would be to reach any civil authorities in Romania or Europe that would have a saying in this, please reply to my message.
Thanks for this website and I hope some of these stories and hopefully resolutions to issues presented here will help people be more informed before being trapped and screwed by WIZZ Air.
Dan
7 Responses to “Thank God for the freedom of speech and the internet! At least we can share our resentment for what is probably the worst airline on the planet!”
Leave a Reply to Mike
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Dan, are you sure if it was WizzAir’s fault? I mean the ground handling companies use to deal with the checking in, not the airlines.
I didn’t check who had those people on payroll, who ever had them though, was paying them too much… anyway, I write to tell you that I received a full refund of the fare paid to WizzAir by way of AMEX! Thank God there are still companies with good sense out there (I’m referring to AMEX, of course). It’s comforting to know some companies care about their customers, unlike WizzAir, who is feeling right at home in a country known for it’s lack of customer service / appreciation. Never again, I guess that is my option as a consumer. WIZZAIR SUCKS! (big time)
Dan
I would say it was your fault as you came too late to airport.
Dan,
My wife had the same experience,arrived within allowed time at check in, nobody was there. It took her time with baby on hands to find representative and finally she was told that she was 6 mins late.
Can you please suggest a way to claim refund for denied boarding. She was sold another ticket though-rescheduled. We wrote via theire compalint form on their website, no response so far and I am sceptic about the outcome. There are two sides of the story, theirs and ours. Of course the corporate machine is always “right”. Please suggest how to fight this unfairness!
Last minute check-in is always risky and clearly the risk is yours not the airline’s. Infact I had very positive experience when once I was late for check-in at Rome, I was 15 minutes late because the tube wasn’t operating normally. I could still check-in along with some other late passangers.
My partner infact goes for the safe way every time, she used to be at the check-in right when it opens, she complains that it happened that the check-in opened 5 minute late
I have been in a similar situation twoo weeks ago. I was supposed to fly to Burgas on 15 July with my wife and my two young children. We arrived at Luton airport, the screens were showing that the checkin is at desks such and such. We proceeded to the desks. We were with online check-in and already had our boarding passess printed. we were only supposed to drop off the luggage. On arrival there were three desks to check-in. For apparently cost cutting reason the desks were shared with the flight to Riga. Two of the desks were for normal checkin and there was two groups of about 5-6 people alltogether. On our Internet check-in desk there was about 20 people to “Drop off” their bags. The two desks sat idle for some time and then reluctantly started accepting people form our queue. When we got to the desk we were shown to the other desk where the operative stated that the checkin is already closed.
At the customer desk of Servisair – the ground handling operator, we requested to see someone with authority but what followed was a long wait and then an arrogant servisair supervisor who handled us aggresively and rude. She declined to give us a further contact number to her superiors stating that they are all in meetings. She only gave me a scribbled postal address to her line manager…
I complained to Serviseair manager and she responded that they are right, they do not accept any responsibility and that is first week of trials by wizzair to decrease the number of desks. She stated to go and seek recompense from Wizzair as they requested the trial.
Still my delay was caused by: sharing the flight with Riga and their staff grossly missmanaging the queue and demand (most travelers were checked online as shown by the queue sizes). At the end I was lucky there was a flight next day but that costed me 150£ for rebooking.
Now I am putting a claim through my insurer and if that gets in muddy watters I am attending the CCTV screening to show exact times and actions and of course the small claims court will follow.
Apart from that Wizzair have been quite reasonable on my previous flights (I used them since their conception as they fly from nearby airport) with no expectations of quality but functionality.
I got two disputes in the past which were dealt with smooth and quick with no significant delays (one was for booking a minor on wrong date and the second was the volcanic issue which caused havoc to many airlines).
DAN,
It is old post here but I would like to reply to your post…..ONE MOMENT,ONE MOMENT DAN…..What are you writing here ? Denied boarding….Regulation (EC) No 261/2004 ??? BLA,BLA…PLEASEEEEE…IT IS YOUR PROBLEM,NOT A PROBLEM TO WIZZ AIR employeed it is simply 60 minutes you should to be at least at the Airport.And you arrive on the last moment,SO,it is not denied boarding by WIZZAIR,court,USA,Romanian Authorities….1300 EURO and LUFTHANSA SO SIMPLY !!!
ALEX,MACEDONIA