Passengers should receive an automatic refund for canceled foreign holidays, such as the delayed train refund scheme, said Transport Secretary Grant Shapps.
Shapps ruled out sending the armed forces to help prosecute tourists after scenes of travel chaos during the mid-term break, saying it was up to the airlines and the airports themselves to hire and train more staff. He said a campaign should be launched “to attract people to the sector and make sure people get paid properly”.
The transport secretary said he wanted a plan for people to get quick refunds, such as the national plan used by train companies to compensate passengers for delays.
When asked if the army would come in if things did not improve in the coming weeks, Shapps said, “The army is not a quick fix for all the problems. Second, they are deploying in increasing numbers. in Eastern Europe, in the Baltic countries, in a war situation and that is why they are mainly in the army.
“Airports and airlines will have to solve this problem. The government will give them full support, but I don’t think that will include the call of the army.”
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Speaking on the BBC’s Sunday Morning program, Shapps said there would be new changes to try to avoid similar scenes for the summer holidays.
“Having accepted that it is a private sector industry, we will of course do our best to make sure we are helping people escape this summer,” he said. “To ensure that, when this does not happen, there is an adequate dispute resolution, a proper charter for passengers, to ensure that this means that they can obtain quick and easy compensation for this or that they can be assigned to other flights.
“It simply came to our notice then. I want it to be more like train delay amortization works, where it’s an automated process. “
He said that now it was essential that the airlines did not fly over the flights, which had caused some passengers to cancel all their holidays. “It’s very important that flights are not oversold, for example, and I want to make sure there is automatic compensation for passengers,” he said.
“We will work very hard with the industry this summer to make sure we don’t see a repeat of these scenes. It’s clear that they were surprised by the way people have traveled again after two years of closure. but no wonder: we were saying all the time, “You have to be prepared for this.”