Air tax refund firm in the wars

 
AIRTAXREFUND.COM has had a turbulent start to this year.

Ryanair has stepped up the legal pressure on the new business, which is offering to chase air tax refunds for passengers for a small fee.

On February 4th, Ryanair’s director of legal and regulatory Juliusz Komorek affairs, fired off two more letters to co-founder Brian Whelan threatening legal action. …

Whelan has been given until 5pm today [ie, Fri Feb 11, 2011] to respond. He told me the matter was with his legal advisers at William Fry. …

I’ve set out the background to this issue here.

IRELAND’S two leading airlines are making over €285 million clear profit per annum by holding on to taxes and charges paid by passengers who fail to show up for flights. The operators of a new service to assist Irish air travellers to reclaim refunds of taxes, fees and charges (TFCs), claim Ryanair and Aer Lingus are engaging in “unfair practice” over their handling of the issue. The company, Airtaxrefund.com, said it had dealt with passengers of over 500 flights since its service was launched last October. A survey of such claims indicated Aer Lingus owes an average refund of taxes, fees and charges of €40 per passenger and Ryanair an average refund of €35 per passenger. … The National Consumer Agency has also warned airlines that it is considering a High Court challenge to compel them to refund TFCs to passengers who cancel flights. …

If the NCA does take the claim, it has a very good chance of success. See my posts Can you recover taxes and charges from airlines when you don’t travel? (16 Nov 2010); What are websites for? (9 March 2008); Airlines are facing legal challenge over refunds (30 October 2007); Refunding unincurred airport taxes and charges (26 March 2007).