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On September 23, 2023, I encountered a ludicrous incident at Zvartnots International Airport! We had originally planned to board flight 5W7014 from Yerevan to Abu Dhabi on that day. However, at the boarding gate, the staff insisted I purchase additional luggage without providing any explanation or justification for the fee. Despite my willingness to pay, I also requested the name of the person handling the transaction so I could later verify the reasonableness of the charge, but they refused to provide this information. Given my subsequent travel plans, after a brief argument with the staff, I agreed to pay and attempted to present my credit card to them. However, the staff refused to accept it. During the time I was waiting for them, they closed the boarding gate, and I was denied boarding. I have clear audio recordings from that moment, which evidence my consent to pay, and I have submitted them along with my claim for compensation. However, they now insist that I refused to pay and refuse to provide audio or video evidence. Furthermore, they continue to refuse to provide proof of the denied boarding incident.
Please help, thank you!Sue them in the Armenian courts?
Or move on with your life.
What did you do in the end? It doesn’t sound like the best place to be stranded!
Wizz is an EU airline so theoretically bound by EU261 – there’s lots of info about this legislation on here if you have a look in this section of the forum. Though I’m not sure if it applies if the journey doesn’t start OR end in the EU or UK. IIRC they are not easy to deal with, but not impossible:
https://www.cityam.com/wizz-air-ordered-to-review-years-of-falsely-rejected-compensation-claims/
Of course, they would probably argue over the luggage issue so you would need to be very clear that they were in the wrong, if that’s the case (you haven’t expanded on this).
5W is Wizz Air Abu Dhabi and based there so is a non EU airline flying between two non EU airports so none of the European legislation is of help to you.
Where are you based? Thee maybe consumer protection legislation that might help? Possibly in the UAE as well.
Did you pay by credit card and how much? They may be able to help but this incident was over 6 months ago so they may just say ‘left it too late’
Even if this flight had been operated by an EU or UK operator, you don’t have UK/EC261 rights as the flight operated between two third countries. More particularly, the facts as described do not equate to denied boarding. The pax created a self inflicted situation that delayed him getting to board on time. That’s not the airline’s fault, in whatever jurisdiction this occurred.
There was no valid reason for insisting on getting a person’s name and the recordings of “consent to pay” are completely meaningless/irrelevant in the context of any alleged denied boarding claim.
In some places challenging these sort of decisions is beyond counterproductive as it’s pretty obvious one will have no recourse or change of heart, so arbitrary decisions that have such low cost consequences are best accepted as part of exotic travel experiences.
Why do I think they might have been hoping you’d settle the “extra luggage charge” in cash?
Were they going to provide a detailed receipt for luggage charge? Whether a legitimate charge or not, I think we know the answer to that.I have no idea of the culture of this place but this sounds like a combination of Russian-ish and shakedown-ish.
This could so easily happen to any of us. It’s easy to see how you could get into an argument with them, whether the initial charge was right or wrong, and that right or wrong, ground staff took unfair revenge and were not going to let you board the aircraft even if they were in the wrong, once it escalated.
The problem is you were in a part of the world which sounds as though it runs like this.
Having been a victim of nasty checkin staff in a similar way, for no good reason, however luckily in very much a first world country and so there were limits to what they could do to me, I really sympathise with you (even if you lost your rag and even if the charge they were trying to make was justified). As I know it’s so easy for things to escalate if you strike the wrong person in the wrong place on the wrong day.
The fact that it’s Wizz, of course, doesn’t help. Their reputation for flouting EU261 is appalling, and I gather both the Hungarian and the UK authorities have made them comply. So it could have been good news if only…however as @BAFIS has pointed out, Wizz had cleverly organised the operator of your flight to be technically a non-EU non-Hungarian company.
I think you coming on HfP and mentioning what happened to you, is a good reminder that being right is not enough in many parts of the world, to be treated fairly, and thank you for that.
Excellent points, @LL, I’ve been avoiding potentially problematic airlines for so long now I’d forgotten how bad things can be! It sounds as though plenty of other passengers have had similar experiences to the OP (I’m still curious to know how they proceeded after being denied boarding):
https://uk.trustpilot.com/review/www.wizzair.com
Several people mention that Wizz Air don’t do through bookings so pax have to make 2 separate ones – thereby leaving them at the mercy of any detrimental regulations in the transit country. Again, I’d be interested to know if this applied to the OP.
Have to agree with LL and NL here it’s sounds like a shakedown but unfortunately I can’t see what can be achieved other than voting with your wallet and never using Wizz Air again (if that’s possible)
Did you pay via credit card s75 might be a route but you need to be clear what the charges were for and why you didn’t need to pay them. Was it overweight, oversized (wasn’t there a cage for it to go in?) or something else?
Hmmm I can’t help but think there have been lots of details omitted from the account of events.
“Wizz had cleverly organised the operator of your flight to be
technicallya non-EU non-Hungarian company.”No different to (for example) Aer Lingus UK flights from the UK to the USA being operated by a non-EU non-Irish carrier. Airlines have rights to fly to and from their own countries. Hence EU airlines such as Ryanair, Aer Lingus, and Wizz have UK subsidiaries, and Easyjet has European and Swiss subsidiaries
Except that the UK does have its own (almost identical) version of the EU consumer legislation, you can’t really compare it with Armenia or Abu Dhabi!
I know that people mainly go on Trustpilot to give bad reviews, but just in the past month there are multiple references to being charged extra for bags even though the reviewer was within the baggage policy, not being able to check in online, therefore having to pay to do it at the airport and being denied boarding for no apparent reason. These issues are also referenced up in a couple of travel bloggers’ reviews, and of course we saw the very unusual step of Wizz being called out by the CAA for failing to pay thousands of valid compensation claims.
https://thepointsguy.com/news/wizz-air-london-to-abu-dhabi-experience/
https://www.pilotplans.com/blog/wizz-air-review
Suffice to say I won’t be flying with them!
But Wizz Air haven’t set up a subsidiary company in Abu Dhabi so that they can avoid EC261. They have done it so they can fly from Abu Dhabi to places like Armenia, Azerbaijan, etc etc etc, which an EU airline would not be able to do. They fly to a score of countries from Abu Dhabi that are not in the EU. And those routes would not have EC/UK 261 protection whatever airline flew them.
I think the OP may not have realised this is a UK-focused forum
We need to know where they live and/or which country they purchased the flight from before more tailored advice can be given
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