13m air passengers are now eligible for summer flight compensation

More than 12.8m travellers across the globe were entitled to compensation following a summer of flight disruptions, with one-fifth of them UK passengers, according to new research. This summer saw a large amount of air travel chaos, such as the UK flight industry being hit by mass airport staff strikes after a series of planned walkouts occurred over shift pattern dissatisfaction and pay. Thousands of passengers were also hit by one of the largest global IT outages ever in late July, with around 100,000 estimated to have had their flights disrupted by the IT outage over one weekend, with major airlines such as British Airways and easyJet cancelling or grounding flights at Heathrow. Travel technology company AirHelp has revealed that during this chaotic period, almost half (42%) of the 78m total passengers who departed or arrived in the UK between June and August this year experienced disruptions. This is around 33m travellers in total running into issues with their flights, with a further 3m people having their flights cancelled and 872,000 passengers missing their connecting flights. Out of the 12.8m passengers across the globe who are entitled to compensation, 2.4m of these travellers were from the UK. Along with strikes and outages, large weather events such as hurricanes were among some of the biggest factors that have hindered air traffic itineraries across the globe. The airport that experienced the highest number of passengers eligible for compensation was those flying from London Heathrow at 263,000, while the month of August had the highest volume of passengers eligible at 843,000.<br/>