• The President of UOKiK brought charges against Enter Air airlines, which mislead consumers and, in that way, may violate their collective interests.
• Failure to respond to complaints within 14 days if luggage is lost or damaged or undercompensating for flight delays are some of the practices being challenged.
• The grounds for taking action were signals from affected travelers.

Enter Air is a Polish airline specializing mainly in charter flights for travel agencies. UOKiK has received numerous complaints related to issues with complaints concerning damaged baggage or flight delays. After analyzing these signals and reports from Facebook, where affected parties described their experiences with the carrier, and after conducting an investigation, the President of UOKiK charged Enter Air with violating the collective interests of consumers. The President challenged as many as 10 of that company’s practices.

Issue with complaints

The analysis of UOKiK reveals that Enter Air may be making it difficult in several ways for consumers to pursue claims related to the destruction, damage or loss of checked baggage, or in the event of a delay in its delivery. First of all, the company does not respect the law that changed the obligations of businesses regarding the time limit for responding to complaints. As of 1 January 2023, businesses have 14 days to respond to complaints. If they do not respond to consumers' complaints within this time, it means that they have acknowledged them in full. Meanwhile, Enter Air continues to say it will process the complaints about damaged or lost baggage within 30 days. Consequently, according to the company, failure to respond after 14 days does not indicate that they have been recognized and consumers do not automatically receive what they claimed.

In addition, the carrier requires a lost or damaged baggage claim to be filed with the baggage claims office at the airport immediately after the flight. A Property Irregularity Report (PIR) is then prepared. In the opinion of the President of UOKiK, this already counts as a complaint that should trigger the 14-day time limit for the company to respond. However, Enter Air requires consumers to lodge another complaint – in writing or electronically via a form available on its website, to which consumers must attach PIR and other documents, such as an obverse and reverse of the baggage identification tag or its claim stub. By setting such requirements for handling complaints, the company may be violating consumer rights.

Furthermore, in the opinion of the President of UOKiK, Enter Air provides misleading information to consumers about the limitation of its liability for delayed delivery of checked baggage as well as about its rules of liability for damage or destruction of either checked or carry-on baggage.

Issue with compensation

If a flight to the destination is delayed by at least 3 hours or canceled for reasons other than extraordinary circumstances, the law regulates the amount of compensation for consumers. Therefore, the situation where airlines do not inform travelers of this fact, but rather offer them a so-called settlement for a lower amount, raises serious concerns for the President of UOKiK. According to complaints, the carrier is offering them the settlement as an immediate offer, valid only until the delayed flight lands. This way, the carrier forces consumers to make a quick decision that is not favorable to them, offering 100 euros instead of the 250 euros due, for instance. Furthermore, when travelers file complaints requesting the amount of compensation to which they are legally entitled, Enter Air does not recognize the claim in full.

“The legislation clearly defines the rights and compensation of consumers, and the business is under an obligation to inform consumers of them and pay the compensation due. Any attempts to limit consumer rights and failure to respect due claims by entrepreneurs are unacceptable. Just like it is prohibited to not respond to complaints within the statutory time limit. In our opinion, practices exhibited by the carrier, such as requiring double complaints, may indicate a violation of the collective interests of consumers,” said Tomasz Chróstny, President of UOKiK.

If the charges are substantiated, the business may be fined in the amount equal up to 10% of its annual revenue per challenged practice.

UOKiK constantly monitors complaints submitted to the Office and the European Consumer Center. As part of its investigations, it also looks at the practices of other airlines.