In particular, passengers who have not booked their canceled flights directly with the airline but via one of the many booking portals are currently at the mercy of a massive ping-pong game of responsibilities. Among other things, the consumer advice center in North Rhine-Westphalia has now obtained an injunction against Eurowings, which is intended to end the “games” at the expense of consumers.

The consequence of this is that Eurowings and some other airlines are currently prohibited by law from making reimbursements via the booking portals. These must be paid directly to the end customer. The background is the ping-pong games, because the airline refers to the agent and the agent refers to the airline. Allegedly there are also cases in which the airline is said to have reimbursed the portal, but the portal allegedly did not pass the money on to the passenger. Such reports have increased in recent weeks and months. A stop has now been put in place at Eurowings, because due to the injunction, payments may only temporarily be made directly to the customer.

Unfortunately, the passengers concerned can now by no means count on the repayment to which they are entitled to flow faster, because Eurowings now has to research the contact details first. Many booking portals do not forward these to the airline.