BERLIN (dpa-AFX) - More consumers than ever before turned to the Travel and Transport Arbitration Board last year for disputes such as flight and train cancellations. More than 45,600 applications were received in 2024, the organization announced. That was around 14.5 percent more than in the previous year. The number of arbitration requests also exceeded the previous peak from 2020, when millions of trips were canceled due to the pandemic.

Strikes and extreme weather affect air traffic

Consumers can turn to the conciliation body if they have problems with travel companies. Around 84 percent, and thus once again the majority of the requests last year concerned air travel. Numerous strikes, extreme weather events and IT failures led to significant restrictions in air traffic in 2024, the conciliation body announced. As a result, around 38,000 requests were received due to canceled flights, among other things.

Conflicts with rail companies led to 6,500 applications, it was reported. That was around one-fifth more than in the previous year, "a significant increase, but not surprising given the well-known problems with the rail infrastructure in Germany".

Hundreds of millions of euros in reimbursements for Deutsche Bahn

The main issues were train cancellations and delays. Deutsche Bahn says it paid out a mid-triple-digit million sum in reimbursements for delays last year.

The conciliation body for travel and transport had changed its name in 2024. Its previous name was the Conciliation Body for Public Passenger Transport (SÖP). Since 2010, it has been dealing with problems related to air, bus, rail and boat travel. Around 400 transport companies participate in the conciliation process, which they finance themselves. Conflicts related to bus and boat travel regularly make up the smallest share of all cases.

Since October, the conciliation body has been using a new case processing system that applies slightly different statistical parameters than its predecessor. This is said not to be significant in relation to the year 2024 as a whole. However, the months since October are only partially comparable with the previous year./maa/DP/jha