Aviation Charge - £100 fine for 200mb of Data

[JordanMcandrew]

Just got off my flight from Australia back to sunny England to be notified my phone bill for the month will be £181 - despite having EU/International data allowance on my bolt ins.

Having been in the o2 shop, they insisted I would be able to get it removed and persuaded me to purchase a new phone as my bill was ‘extortionate’.

Ended up with an upgrade - and then he contacted customer services, spent 2 hours in store to be told all I could receive was a £50 reduction in the charge despite not being made aware of ‘aviation charges’ and a three year extension of my contract.

Spent the past two hours trying to get through to the complaints team after being told twice I would be contacted - and have been referred to as ‘my man’ and made aware turning flight mode on to stop said charges is common sense.

Several heated arguments later, the advisor insisted £100 was a reasonable charge for 200mb of data whilst 30,000 feet above the ocean and that informed me I was in fact onboard a cruise ship - I offered to provide a photograph of myself aboard Etihads airbus, to which he refused.

I have now been forwarded to the dissatisfaction team and will receive a phone call within the next five working days, despite saying I would like to cancel my contract as I am in my 14 day cooling off period.

Has anyone else experienced this - apparently I should have known of this aviation charge as it is public knowledge, yet every member of staff in the o2 shop had not heard of this.

[MI5 · Accepted solution]

@JordanMcandrew 

All covered in our guide here
https://community.o2.co.uk/t5/How-to-Guides/Cruise-Liners-Aircraft-Charges/ba-p/1058892

Maybe show this to your local shop 😁

[JordanMcandrew]

I’ve just read that - so unprofessional that they weren’t aware, do I take the reduction or keep fighting it? Feel guilty bringing the store member into the complaint but I wouldn’t have got a new contract had I been told I would have to pay the fine

[MI5]

Fight it all the way

[Foddersin]

I would advise now just based on my role as a complaint handler.
I would strongly suggest that you meet them half way at least. The information regarding aviation charging is freely available and just like a cruise ship, connecting in air you are not connecting to a land mast, you are connecting to satelitte signal which is why the charge are so high and agressive and your carrier is simply charging you exactly what the owner of it is charging.
I think if this case had come to me, I would offer half as it is not O2's fault that you used your phone whilst in flight. I would actually say half way is generous. But if you choose to go further be warned that I full believe that Ofcom would give the same response and may indeed not take any action as these charges are covered in t's and c's

[Anonymous]

To be absolutely fair to the store staff I'd imagine this query comes up quite rarely as phone use on planes is relatively recent and most consumers won't try and use their phones in this way.

Put it down to experience, a reduction of half is very generous considering the wholesale charge.

[jonsie]

Last time I flew Emirates they had wifi and $1 bought you 500MB which you could also use on the connecting flight. Probably more than a dollar mow. You got an initial 10 MB free (not much I know) but the point being you had to purchase wifi and sign in. I'm not sure how you could have connected automatically to a satellite without being aware.

[Foddersin]

Because I would guarantee flight mode wasn't enabled then enabled WiFi separately therefore it would connect to the mobile data satellite connection.