During the pandemic of COVID-19, we know all too well that aviation and tourism have been severely affected by travel restrictions. There were periods with millions of flights canceled, tens of thousands of planes stranded on the ground and tens of millions of passengers affected.
The tourism industry was severely affected by declining sales, the blockade by the authorities and the fact that they failed to honor their services to customers. But in addition to these problems, all aviation and tourism companies were assaulted by the outraged passengers, and the Customer Relations departments failed to deal with thousands of requests for refunds, rerouting, rescheduling, etc.
Vola.ro requested reimbursements of over 6 million EURO
The reality is that everyone (passengers, airlines, travel agencies and agencies like VOLA.ro) had something to lose during this period. Even we as a publication were "bombarded" with thousands of messages from different people affected by flight cancellations, travel restrictions, blocked in different parts of the world.
A report issued by Vola.ro, we find out that in the last 6 months the agency has submitted reimbursement requests amounting to over 6 million euros. So far, VOLA.ro has managed to reimburse or reschedule flights of over 4,2 million euros for 29.000 passengers. Another 12.000 customers are still receiving support VOLA.ro in completing the refund or rescheduling process.
Over 41 Vola.ro customers were affected
Over 8000 Vola.ro customers had tickets for Blue Air flights and have NOT yet received solutions from the airline. Vola.ro announces that the value of the refunds to be recovered from Blue Air is over 1 million EURO.
Also from the Vola.ro report I found out that, at European level, between 15 and 1 flights were canceled daily between 2020 March and 20.000 July 25.000. Romanian air traffic decreased by 87% during the state of emergency. A comparison compared to the same period in 2019.
It is not easy because it is not a unilateral decision. It all depends on the response time of the airlines. It should be mentioned, however, that Vola.ro reimbursed the passengers, including the service fee charged at the time of booking the plane ticket, and assisted them in the reimbursement process.
Because yes, Vola.ro has a service fee, which is added to the ticket price. But, as can be seen, it is a justified fee. Even if some Airline operators urge passengers to buy tickets directly from their websites, sometimes it is good to turn to travel agencies because you can get assistance, support and even guidance in solving such problems.
Vola.ro deserves to be praised for the way it handled the situation during this difficult period for everyone. He provided customer support, including a refund of the service fee, and responded to hundreds of thousands of messages and emails.
What experiences did you have with Vola.ro during the pandemic with the new coronavirus?