The U.S. Department of Transportation (DoT) reduced the fine to TAP, from one million to about $550,000, for a delay in refunds to customers amounting to $122 million, an official airline source told Lusa on Tuesday.
“The fact that the company has already done that [a totalidade dos reembolsos] and in good faith, including passengers who would not be legally entitled to a refund, led the DoT to reduce the fine imposed to approximately EUR 550,000,” said TAP.
The US authority had sentenced TAP to pay a fine of one million euros, for the delay of refunds to customers, for cancellations related to the pandemic, amounting to 122 million euros, which the airline already realized was “completely “had paid”.
“While our largely manual claims process was adequate prior to the pandemic, our 90% reduction in headcount, coupled with an avalanche of claims due to Covid-19, meant we were unable to respond in a timely manner to massive and unprecedented requests, which are often complicated with multiple reservation and payment systems”an official TAP source explained in a written response to Lusa.
The airline also said it hired additional staff as soon as it was financially able, and invested in “implementing automated solutions to facilitate refunds, all of which, however, have been paid and accounted for”.
“We take the DoT rules very seriously and are fully committed to complying with them. We have made a good faith effort to process customer refunds as quickly as possible during the extremely difficult circumstances caused by covid-19,” underlined TAP.
Source: DN
