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The good, the bad, and the ugly - discover what customers are saying about Spanair

Welcome to our customer reviews and complaints page for Spanair. We understand that making informed decisions about where to invest your time and money can be challenging, which is why we've created this platform for our community to share their honest feedback about their experiences with Spanair.

On this page, you'll find a comprehensive collection of reviews and complaints from real customers who have used Spanair's products or services. Our reviews are authentic and unbiased, providing you with a complete picture of the company, its products or services, and their customer service.

Whether you're considering doing business with Spanair, or you've already had an experience with them, our community's reviews and complaints will give you a valuable perspective on what to expect. Our goal is to help you make informed decisions about where to invest your time and money, and we hope that our platform will be a valuable resource for you.

Please feel free to browse our reviews and complaints and share your own experience with Spanair. Your feedback is an important part of our community and will help others make informed decisions.

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8:27 am EDT
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Spanair Forced to purchase 1st class

Myself and my fiancée travelled to Gran Canary on Tue 15th of June 2010 for a
weeks holiday from Prestwick with Ryanair, to return on the 22nd.On the evening of the 16th i was contacted by my family to inform me that my father had passed away that day and that i had to return home as soon as possible.

The next available direct flight to Scotland was not until Saturday the 19th and we were informed by our hotel that the best option would be to go to the airport and try to book a flight to the nearest hub airport (Madrid) as soon as possible. Upon arrival at the airport we were told that the next available flight was at 6am on the 17th on one of Spanairs regular business hopper services, but as the flight was full was would only be able to book on 1st class at a cost of 505euros per passenger. Being unable to afford such costs at last minute we contacted my family who were told to contact spanairs call centre to make the reservation on our behalf.When they contacted the call center they queried the high costs and were told that as the flight was only one way policy states it has to be 1st class. They booked the tickets regardless as at this time of family tragedy and grief cost was not a concern.

Upon boarding the flight i was astonished to see that in fact the flight was not full and there were plenty of spaces in economy class. Now since returning i have tried to find this "policy" of spanair forcing customers to purchase 1st class on a one way flight advertised/ stated anywhere on our site and have yet to find any mention of it. As such i feel spanair has done nothing but lie to me and my family during a time when sympathy and helpfulness would have been better served.

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5:11 pm EDT
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Spanair Delayed luggage

This last summer I went to Ibiza from Lisbon, connecting in Madrid. As I arrived at Ibiza airport my luggage was missing. I was told at the airport that I was entittled to an amount of 50 euros refund if the luggage delay exceeded 24h. Unfortunately, my luggage only arrived after 36h so that I left a complaint form at the Spanair desk in Ibiza. I was contacted several times, and asked to send: invoices, passengers data and ultimatly the boarding pass. There has been almost 3 months and several phone calls, 4 fax's and 3 letters and I haven't been payed.

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Cham Seedyand Plate-Cham Agnes
,
Oct 14, 2008 12:39 pm EDT

Last year as we were visiting my parents and the kid we are sponsuring at school.we had many things spoiled due to bad management and long time delay, and at the end we´re refared to air france thereby we must fly to France, then France Dakar (Senegal) instead of Düsseldorf to Banjul and as we were booking we booked Düss-Mad, Mad -bjl(the Gambia).From Dakar Senegal we landed almost Midnight and we have to take a transport to Farafenni were we spent the rest of the night in a hotel.the next day we took another transport to banjul. On our return it was the booked route but the bagages are spoiled very badly and my wife`s bag came late aswell and damaged .therefore I wrote to you before via the travel agent and nothing is done .Our over night, brakefast and transport costs from Dakar to Banjul which we have to take from our own pockets .
We are looking forward to your agrement and conponsations
Cham Seedy and Plate-Cham Agnes.

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Graeme Fell
Vancouver, CA
Aug 18, 2009 11:23 am EDT

My son was travelling alone to visit ihis aunt who lives in Grand Canary. We bought tickets online from Vancouver to Frankfurt return and from Frankfurt to Grand Canary. The second part of the journey, from Frankfurt to Grand Canary, was to be on Spanair. I received email confirms from all the airlines, Spanair included. When my son got to Frankfurt he was told that he did not have a booking, this depsite the copy of the email confirmation. He was toild that a email had been sent to us (did not receive one) and that a text message had been sent (to a land line-nice job). Spanair would not honour the booking but were willing to sell him a ticket for over 2000euro, 5 times the price of the confirmed ticket price.
He had to spend an extra night in Frankfurt and purchase a new ticket at extra cost but not the 2000euros spanair had asked for.
Spanair put the blame squarely on us...I've travelled for 30 years and never had this happen...when is a confirm booking not a confirm booking?

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Lakeside
Orleans, CA
Nov 13, 2010 8:12 am EST

I flew Spanair from Barcelona to Munich last week. Generally my compnay books us economy but because of connecting international flights I flew what was billed as business class. First off, the seats were no different from economy. Then there was the in-flight serivice, or rather the lack of service. About an hour into the flight I saw the cabin crew prepare the carts for the service. I put my tray down only to see the crew go back into the economy section. I and the people beside me were never offered a meal, not even a glass of water on the two hour flifgt! and this in "business" class.

I sent a complaint off using Spanair's web site and asking for type of compensation since my company paid for business. All I got back was an automated reply saying they take my complaints seriously, blah blah and hoped I'd fly with them again. I don't think so! A reply from a computer and not even an offer of an extra serving of peanuts on the next flight have struck off Spanair from any of my further booking! Terrible service made worse by a n automated replay give a A big thumbs down to Spanair.

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wine lover714
Anaheim, US
Oct 10, 2010 7:21 am EDT

I just got back from a trip in Europe, and had the misfortune of flying Spanair. We were f;ying from Marsaille to Malaga through Barcelona on a Friday. The flight to Barleona arrived about on time, and we then expected a 3 to 4 hour wait for our connection. Because of heavy rain in Barcelona, the wait became about 6 hours. We verified that our luggage was checked through so we settled in and took our flight to Malaga. Our luggage did not get on the flight, along with the luggage of about 15-20 others. We were told the luggage would be on the next morning's flight, either at 8:15 or 11:30 and we could either have it delivered or pick it up at the airport. Needless to say it was on neither flight, with the explaination that they were concerned about weight. We weree getting on a cruise that afternoon so we tried to get them to send it to one of the Spanish ports or Lisbon, which they said they could do if we were going to be in port for two days. Well, to cut this short they did not do anything over the weekend, were totaly non-responsive, and then sent the bags to Malaga on Monday for us to pick up. We managed to get them to send the bags back to Barcelona at the end of our cruise.

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michael r kent
, PT
Oct 23, 2009 5:41 pm EDT

I saw that happen to a friend of mine.

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2:37 am EDT

Spanair Inappropriate booking & lost luggage

My spouse and I booked a Spanair round trip flight from Frankfurt to Seville. The outward flight was fine, but the return was to put it mildly, a bumpy flight, not just because things went wrong; this can happen on any flight these days, but because the way we were dealt with by the airline staff and because they simply were not honest with us.

Our return flight was canceled because of mechanical problems with the plane. We were told to retrieve our luggage and proceed to the ticket counter of Spanair in the Seville airport for rebooking. After waiting about an hour in line, which by the way was utter chaos, since the staff allows others to interrupt the work they are doing with one customer to answer questions and deal with problems from other customers who come to the counter without queuing. This of course means they have to multitask and right then we knew there would be problems. When we made it to the counter, the attend first said the only thing they could do was load us on a bus for a two-hour ride to Jerez where we would then catch a late flight to Barcelona and eventually connect to a Lufthansa flight to Frankfurt. This would have gotten us to our final destination in Germany in the early hours of the morning as we still had to take a two-hour train ride. We then asked if we could stay over in Seville and take the same flights we had booked for the day of the cancellation. The attendant said she could book us on the same morning flight out of Seville with a connecting flight to Frankfurt but with only a 50-minute time window to catch the flight. I said that I had originally opted against that flight because of frequent delays. I had booked a later afternoon flight with a 3-hour window. The attendant assured us that this wasn't necessary and insisted that we would be foolish not to take the earlier connection, because 50 minutes was plenty of time to make the connection. Figuring that because Spanair and Lufthansa are Star Alliance partners, we took the attendants recommendation. She printed out the confirmation and we were off to spend one more night in Seville.

The next morning we arrived at the airport at 8am and were the first customers in line when the check-in counter opened. The attendant book us to Barcelona but said that she could not give us a boarding pass in Seville and that we would have to get a boarding pass at the Lufthansa counter in Barcelona. I said that we had been issued boarding passes the day before for both flight. Her response was that there was nothing she could do about it because the "computer" would not allow her to issue the boarding pass. So, off we went to await the flight to Barcelona, which arrived from Barcelona 30minutes late. We suspected that we were in trouble. However, once the flight left, the pilot assured us that because of a strong tail wind we would arrive on time. Indeed, we arrived in Barcelona 5 minutes late and we figured we had plenty of time to catch the flight. However, rather than disembark on a jetway we were taken on a 15-minute bus ride, which began about 10 minutes after we boarded the bus. We were taken to the far end of the Barcelona airport--Model 1 and Lufthansa, the Star Alliance partner of Spanair, left from Module 4, which meant we had to run through a very grounded airport. We arrived five minutes before the flight was to leave and were told that the flight had closed and that our seats had been given to stand-by passengers. The agent said that he would book us on the next flight, which of course was the original flight with a 3-hour window and that he would book us into Business class. He also said we had access to the VIP Lounge of Spanair. However, he was unable to issue boarding passes at the time and that we would have to wait until the next Frankfurt flight opened. We went to the lounge and because I have a United (Star Alliance) Gold Card, we assumed that we would have easy access to the lounge. Not so. The agent said we could not go in without a boarding pass. My spouse then explained the situation in English to the agent. The agent then proceeded to call Lufthansa to check if we had been booked on the flight. She spoke in Spanish, not knowing, that I am a fluent speaker of the language. She told the agent on the line that she was uninterested in stories that passengers tell her and in fact repeated this line again before hanging up. I just looked at her as I was not in a mood to have an argument. She admitted us to the lounge.

We made it to Frankfurt more or less on time, but when we went to pick up our luggage, which had been fitted with a priority label (because of my Gold Card Status!) in Seville, it hadn't arrived. We went to the Lufthansa counter and after checking the agent informed us that it hadn't been loaded in Seville ! What is more, there were only six passengers in Seville who had checked baggage. The rest had carry on bags only. While in Barcelona I searched in vain to find a Spanair supervisor to lodge my complaint about the inappropriate booking in Seville. I was given a major run-around. There was no Spanair supervisor to be found. When we arrived at our destination in Germany, I tried looking up a complaint service for Spanair, and so far, I have been unsuccessful had locating anyone to speak with about the very bad service we were given and so far, no bags!

Never again we will fly Spanair!

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Eva01
, HR
Oct 06, 2009 9:10 am EDT
Verified customer This comment was posted by a verified customer. Learn more

Sorry Paul, haven't been here for some time.

Well, last thing I did was this spring when I 'threatened' them with media, then I got the first ever phonecall from them saying they will pay in two weeks time, that turned out to be four months at the end.

I did write to some Spanish medias (El Mundo and some others), but there was no reply.

But all in all, they don't react to anything - being kind, being rude, it is all the same to them because they are probably listening to it every day.

What did you do in the meantime?

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TestGrid
, ES
Sep 18, 2009 10:01 am EDT

Hdhxbhfh

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PaulFromPoland
, PL
Sep 18, 2009 9:58 am EDT

Just I have very simple but practically very hard question to you. Can you try to analyse what did you make/write (special kind of sentences) that finally you got positive result? Any tips will be more than welcome

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PaulFromPoland
, PL
Sep 18, 2009 9:56 am EDT

Congratulations Eva

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Eva01
, HR
Sep 14, 2009 6:31 am EDT
Verified customer This comment was posted by a verified customer. Learn more

Dear PaulFromPoland,

I am one of Spanair "victims". They permanently lost my lugagge in July 2007, and do you know when I received a cheque?

Two days ago - that is, exactly two years, one month and 20 days after they lost it.

In the meantime I spent incredible amount of time and money phoning them, writing e-mails etc. Of course, I wrote to Star Alliance, some EU institutions and some Spanish media - no result.
I have been told that the lawsuit would be too expensive comparing to money they would pay me for lost suitcase. In short, story is to damn long for this space here.

Therefore, here are my answers:

1. Yes. They reimburse ehat they think they should, while 1000 SDR is only maximum amount.
2. They told me 100 days but you have to call them again and again. That is, they won't call you after those 100 days to tell you that.
3. As I said, I was told it would be too expensive.

In spite of everything, I hope you'll have more luck than me.

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PaulFromPoland
, PL
Sep 08, 2009 5:51 am EDT

Spanair lost my luggage too but be honest they stollen my luggage and their strategy is no to answer to any written forms. But finally very good question is about Star Alliance. How Lufthansa main partner of this programmme invited and accepted Spanair to be a member of this alliance. This is Mickey Mouse airline how Verge summarised.

Practically I have few questions:
1. Does Spanair belong to Montreal convention from May 28th, 1999 ? If yes then they have to reimburse 1000SDR in case of not finding lagguge
2. How long Spanair has time to find my lugguage 21 or 30 days before giving him status 'lost'?
3. My national air carrier LOT Polish Airline suggested to be prepared to create civil court action. What do you think about it?

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Verge
,
Aug 15, 2008 8:05 am EDT

Spanair is a complete joke. They don't even man their own counters it's done by a 3rd party company called Newco. What does that mean? They have to accountability.

Spanair lost one of my bags and when they found it they told me I had to come and fetch it myself at my expense. Every time you ask to speak with a manager they refer you to contact their head office in writing. Well I did that and it's been 9 month's and have not heard back.

No wonder this airline is up for sale and no one is interested in buying them. They are a mickey mouse airline. How they are a part of Star Alliance is beyond me.

AVOID SPANAIR!

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Korenna
,
Aug 12, 2008 12:17 am EDT

So sorry for your trouble! I really feel your pain- Did you ever get your luggage back? SpanAir and AirCanada have doubled up to keep me from getting my luggage back for a month now.
Fingers crossed- I'm still hoping to get it back someday!

ComplaintsBoard
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4:26 am EDT
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Spanair Spanair lost luggage - no contact for 7 months

Spanair lost our luggage on our flight from Zurich, Switzerland to Barcelona, Spain. Despite numerous phone calls and three letters requesting compensation, we have yet to be compensated. Phone calls to baggage services of Spanair are absolutely fruitless, as no one I've spoken can give me any information, except that the bag is still missing. I have never been able to speak to someone who is willing/able to tell me what is being done to locate my bag or to get me compensation for the lost bag. Spanair is like a vacuum this way, and the kicker is that calling them is a very expensive international call! Three letters requesting compensation have also gone unanswered. I am so frustrated because it seems like there is absolutely no recourse for this horrible treatment.

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sean
,
Aug 18, 2008 2:08 pm EDT

i used spanair on a flight from cork to palma and back.on the outgoing flight the plane was 5 and a half hours late and when we got to palma at one in the morning we had to wait another two hours for our bags.on the return the flight was 3 hours late, so we spent 10 and a half hours in all waiting.i had never heard of spanair until i booked the flight and i will never use them again.

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SHAUN-NICK BESTER
, ZA
Jul 31, 2011 7:22 pm EDT

bicycle in bicycle box marked caixanova missing on flight from Johannesburg via Barcelona to Vigo missing VGOJK25486

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yordan dimitrov
Fort Wayne, US
Jan 04, 2009 6:50 am EST

My luggage was stollen when i flew with spanair, and they do not want to refund me for my lost, so what should i do about it. I would appreciate any advise. Thanks

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Irinamx
, MX
Nov 16, 2011 5:34 pm EST

Is now 6 month since they lost my luggage, 100 calls, 50 emails, nothing helps. any Lawyers outhere ready to sue this S-"pain" airline? Payment is after recivery of my looses.

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worked
, US
Nov 02, 2011 4:27 pm EDT

They recently lost my luggage as well... After 21 days, I've jumped through all the hoops, emailed and faxed them my information. i still haven't received the 50 euros they offered me while my bag was in limbo. The customer service is so bad, it's not worth calling again. Just wish I had known more about SpanAIR before flying with them. I would have carried on as much as I could, and DHL-ed the rest. I'll let this forum know if I ever receive my reimbursement, which I'm sure will be miniscule in comparison to the luggage lost.

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rafaela marlen dorta
, ES
Oct 07, 2011 1:08 am EDT

HOLA PUES YO PERDI LA MI EL 28 DE MAYO Y A EST5AS ALTURAS NO HE RESIB IDO NADA SOLO MALA FORMA D3E CONTESTA SON UNOS TIMADORES LADRONES Y ABUSADORES DEBIERAN QUITAR ESA COMPAÑIA NO SON FIABLES ABAJO SPANAIR QUEREMOS VUELOS SEGUROS QUEREMOS RESPUESTA Y NUESTRAS PERTENENCIAS INCOMPETENTES TODOS DEBEN IRSE A LA RUINA POR FALSOS Y MENTIROSOS

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Irinamx
, MX
Sep 21, 2011 4:27 pm EDT

forgot to add, I went to their check-in counter asking for their check-in luggage policies, written! to show me my rights, they refused, they told they do not have anything to show me, I asked what about all this bags people check-in right now, if one asks for tthe policies!? they told "go away, we don't have time for your questions" I felt so terrible, is like talking to the wall. no human compassion, they show no care for their actions against humans. I convinced "lot luggage " is their extra business income, covering them salves by "luggage gets lost occasionaly" but no other airlines loses a much? also, they have this issue of lost luggage for years, but they didn't do anything to improve locating the lost luggage !? It looks to me as is it stealing luggage is their extra busines!

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Irinamx
, MX
Sep 21, 2011 3:55 pm EDT

Spainair lost my luggage, is 3 month and is now "officially lost" do they "steal" peoples luggage, it looks same to me as stealing, result is same: me & many others lost their values, , and no one protect us!? I flu BCN - VCE to catch $3 000 USD cruise, and for 12 days I had nothing to wear, my vacation was destroyed, I had no cloth to attend formal nights NO compensations so far from spaiair, not a $1, it looks that they run extra business on the side, stealing people's luggage
If someone would steal anything your on the street Police would protect you, why n airports is treated differently!?

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Janet Ford
Elk Grove Village, US
Jan 19, 2010 10:33 am EST

Another angry customer. My daughter and her college classmate travelled on British Airways/Spanair to get from Chicago To Valencia, spain to study a semester abroad. Well, their experience so far in Spain has been a disaster because of Spanair. Spanair lost their 3 large bags which contained all their clothes and personal items. It has been nearly a week now and we keep getting the runaround. . . no one knows anything . . . they have promised to deliver bags one day and the next day, when bags havent been delivered, they have no clue where they are. Bags clearly tagged and even had complete flight itineraries and destination address and phone number--no excuse for being lost so long. Perhaps their employees steal these bags and sell goods on black market. What a scam! Customer service a joke. Honestly, they have no right to be in business, especially handling people's lives! These 2 college girls are miserable in Spain, not having anything to wear, not enough money to replace the contents, and not having good communication via internet/phone. Wish I would have researched this airline prior to booking my daughter on it . . . . at least in the United States there are standards and protocols and attempts to right wrongs--it seems like the international traveling community doesn't give a damn.

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anoidbyspanair
, BE
Oct 30, 2009 6:56 am EDT

Well, I have the same experience - the only answer I get when I call the (called them 20 times in the last several month) is "we work on your case - you will get an answer asap" - nevertheless, they can't tell what asap means: a week, a year? who knows! It is the worst experience I have with lost luggage (& I am doing 160 flights a year and loose luggage on average twice a year..)

I am still waiting for an outcome since beginning of July (it will be November in 2 days..)

spanair.masist@mapfre.com is their contact mail (although it does not help to write them either)

SAS or LH should give them (as owners) some training. I will avoid them as much as I can.

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