People who have had flights cancelled due to the COVID-19 crisis are fully entitled to a cash refund and are not obliged to accept a voucher, according to the European Commission.
The Commission has made a number of recommendations to make vouchers more appealing, in a bid to help airlines cope with the financial impact of mass flight cancellations.
It says they should have a minimum validity period of 12 months, and be refundable if they are not redeemed in that time.
However, the EU Commission's Executive Vice-President Margrethe Vestager says passengers will be under no obligation to accept the vouchers:
"European consumers have the right to a cash refund if that is what they want."
She continued: "Many companies have come under pressure and this liquidity crunch would be less severe if customers accepted vouchers instead of cash refunds."
Photo by Oleg Magni from Pexels
