This year 2022 started with the third wave of COVID-19 hitting Peru with contagion peaks of half a million per week and more than 100 deaths per day.
This situation has affected airlines, since many of the crew members have been infected with the new variant of COVID-19, generating a lack of personnel to attend flights.
The Dirección de Fiscalización (DFI) and the local office of INDECOPI located at Jorge Chávez International Airport in Lima, pointed out that the airlines that presented more non-compliances so far this year were LATAM (170 flights) and Sky Airline (147 flights), concentrating 82% of the services with itinerary delays.
These airlines are followed by Star Peru (21 flights, 5%) and Viva Air (12 flights, 3%).
INDECOPI remotely monitored, during the first 19 days of January, the departure of 3,175 domestic and international flights, verifying compliance with 87.84% of the itineraries (2,789) and detecting 12.16% (386) of incidents.
Of the 386 incidents reported, 172 flights were canceled, mostly for operational reasons, while 12 were canceled due to bad weather.
The other 139 canceled flights had different causes: commercial, incomplete crew or personnel with health problems. In addition, 62 flights were delayed and one flight was rescheduled.
Most of the cancellations (298) were reported to passengers in advance by the airlines; while another 25 were made at the time of boarding, due to bad weather (12 flights) and for operational reasons (7 flights).
These monitoring actions are carried out by INDECOPI in order to ensure compliance with the rights of citizens, in their capacity as consumers in the provision of air transportation services.
Although it is true that many cancellations are due to the infection of the Omicron variant in the airline crews, the airlines are obliged to inform passengers about the itinerary of the flights (delays or cancellations); as well as to comply, in case of cancellations, with providing protection measures or refunding the compensation paid to the consumer.
