Lewis Richardson was confident that he could easily rebook his reservations with Wizz Air after consulting the company website. The domestic energy advisor and father of two had originally booked a holiday for himself and his family to travel from Luton in the UK to Malaga, Spain, in August 2021. When circumstances forced them to delay their trip by a year, the family decided to rebook their vacation for August 2022.

Mr Richardson claims that when he contacted the airline’s UK call center, he was given contradicting information from the agents. Speaking to Hull Live, he said,

“The first operator told me I had to wait until the original flight had taken off to change my booking, and when I called again, once it had, I was told I needed to do it before.”

He eventually learned that it would cost the family an additional £450 ($549) over and above the £975 ($1,189) they had paid for the original tickets. He booked new reservations, and the family flew off on their Spanish holiday in August 2022. It wasn’t until they returned and Lewis checked his phone statement that he discovered the eye-popping bill.

Premium service

Part of the explanation for the high phone bill could be that Wizz Air’s call center in the United Kingdom is a 09 number, which is deemed to be a Premium rate number. Premium rate numbers are frequently used for banks, call centers, and government departments and can be significantly more expensive than standard numbers that feature an area code.

According to the UK Government, a premium service number can be charged at a rate of up to £3.60 ($4.44) per minute plus a phone company access charge. This rate can apply to conventional landline telephones as well as cell phones.

On its company website, Wizz does advise that customers contacting their call center can expect to pay £1.45 ($1.80) per minute plus whatever phone access charges their phone provider may apply. According to the Richardson’s phone bill, Lewis placed a total of five calls to the Wizz call center and spent 100 minutes on the line with them.

Wizz passenger service problems

Recently Wizz Air has come under scrutiny by the UK Civil Aviation Authority (CAA). According to the Authority, Wizz was ranked as the worst airline for both complaints to the in-house team and complaints that escalated into Alternative Dispute Resolutions (ADR).

The regulator also expressed concerns over the time it was taking Wizz to process claims received from customers and the large number of unpaid County Court Judgments which have been found against Wizz. Third-quarter data shows that Wizz experienced 811 complaints per million passengers, while other airlines had less than half as many complaints. The Authority says it has been clear with Wizz Air that this is unacceptable and that it is imperative that these issues be tackled urgently.

Although the Richardson family did experience a few operational problems on their return flight, such as being held onboard the aircraft due to a lack of ground staff and a four-hour delay waiting for their baggage, Wizz claims that their customer service team has contacted the Richardson family and the case has been resolved.

Wizz Air sincerely apologized for the inconvenience caused.

Source: Hull Live