Speaking during the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) committee hearing on Tuesday (14 June), executives from British Airways, Tui and easyJet were questioned on flight cancellations and disruptions faced by consumers over the past few weeks.
David Burling, chief executive of markets and airlines for Tui, said the service offered by the company was "unacceptable", after the airline cancelled 32 flights on the first weekend of the May half-term.
"We are incredibly sorry and apologise for that," he said. "We went straight to our customers with what compensation they were entitled to. In some cases we offered £400pp extra in terms of vouchers but we know that doesn’t make up for a lost holiday."
In a bid to avoid a repeat of the delays, Tui has contracted extra aircraft and cabin crew for the remainder of the summer as well as more customer service staff in its head office and in airports.
"The whole organisation is now galvanised to put in the resilience so that we do not have a repeat of that situation," he continued. "We have learnt our lesson and we are building more resilience to improve the situation across the whole of the UK. Things are getting better, but we have got to learn from this. The whole industry has to learn."
Meanwhile, Lisa Tremble, chief corporate affairs and sustainability director for British Airways, said the airlines "wants to do better" and provide "the best possible service" to its customers.
"No one wants to let customers down, and we want to provide the best possible service and be the best of British," she said. "We are galvanised behind making everything behind British Airways better.
"To be frank, we know we have a lot of work to do but our people need to be right at the centre of the recovery of the business. In the past, we are aware of some mistrust amongst staff and we need to fix that moving forwards."
