Air France refund race discrimination

dtl

So Air France are, finally, saying they are giving refunds, even if they are dragging their feet over it and making you fill in a form that will be manually checked!   I booked flights for my mother-in-law to visit us from Toyko (so had to book on airfrance.co.jp), so went to the .co.jp web site, followed the links and filled in the form.   Next day I've got an email from Air France saying if I didn't buy the ticket on airfrance.fr, they won't process the refund.   Trying to get them on the phone is well nigh impossible at the moment, but now I just got another email telling me they won't process the refund and to go to the .co.jp site to request a refund.   I have done a quick check and every single air france website links to a form on airfrance.fr!   So the only people Air France are going to process refund requests for are, almost exclusively, French.   I'm no legal expert, but that sounds like the definition of race discrimination.

P.S. EU261 does apply here, because although my mother-in-law lives in Japan, the flight is on an EU based airline and arrives at an EU airport, so they must refund.

bagand96

I doubt there’s any race discrimination here.  Some sort of c*ck up, yes, but I can’t see that even Air France would decide to only refund French people and screw everyone else. 

The .co.jp site says a refund can be requested directly from “My bookings” or by filling out the form. Have you tried the first method?  

Failing that, maybe try and talk to someone, or try Twitter or other social media? Or just go to your card provider.  Or maybe the Daily Mail, they’d lap up your dramatic headline!

mattyprice4004

It's not a race thing - I'm not Japanese and I could book on airfrance.co.jp. 

Sounds like a poor website, but throwing the race card around is a bit much.