Flight cancelled during covid - who is liable?

lad22

Hello! I got stuck in South Africa during COVID. Ethiopian Airways said I must use the flight before the end of 2021. However, then due to Omicron all flights got stopped and I was unable to return for Xmas as planned. Eventually when I got through to the airline they said it was my travel agent who was liable. The travel company said it was up to EA, and all they could do was request a refund. However, I have never heard anything more. Is the travel company liable? Thanks!

eskbanker

If the flight you'd booked on was cancelled then your agent should have sought a refund from the airline at the time, but if you accepted a voucher/credit/equivalent instead then you were bound by its terms, so if they included expiry by the end of 2021 then you don't have a leg to stand on, unless the expiry was postponed because of restrictions associated with the new Covid variant.  The time to resolve that was late 2021, so if you're now left with an expired voucher/credit then I can't see that you have anywhere else to go, although if the agent requested a refund then you should push them for an answer about what happened to it....

lad22

Yes, I did try to resolve it before it expired, but unfortunately just either didn't get through on lots of numbers, and when I finally did, had people pass the buck....

Westin

lad22 said:

Hello! I got stuck in South Africa during COVID. Ethiopian Airways said I must use the flight before the end of 2021. However, then due to Omicron all flights got stopped and I was unable to return for Xmas as planned. Eventually when I got through to the airline they said it was my travel agent who was liable. The travel company said it was up to EA, and all they could do was request a refund. However, I have never heard anything more. Is the travel company liable? Thanks!

It does sound like Ethiopian Airlines might be pushing the truth and blame unless they have processed a refund when the credit expired (not sure how likely that is) and that is sitting with the agent.

Which travel company is this?  What are the time frames on when your should have travelled and when you did actually manage to fly back?

Might be an idea to find out from the travel company when they requested the refund for you, and from Ethiopian when they say they paid the refund to the agent (if indeed they did). Good to have that information in hand.

All that said, eskbanker’s comments very valid regarding the situation if you accepted a credit at the time.

onashoestring

Was the original flight actually cancelled or did it fly but you couldn’t travel because of the Covid restrictions? 

lad22

The original flight was cancelled due to covid, and then when I wanted to book all flights out were cancelled because I was in South Africa and omicron was identified. So it was pointless booking as no flights were leaving to the UK.