British Airways (BA) has been hit with a effective of $1.1m (£877,000) by the United States authorities.

The US Transportation Department issued the punishment for failing to supply well timed refunds for flights to and from the US that have been cancelled as a result of COVID-19 pandemic.

It mentioned it had acquired greater than 1,200 complaints saying the airline failed to supply well timed refunds since March 2020.

The effective is “a strong deterrent to future similar unlawful practices” by BA and different airways, the federal government division added.

Customers have been unable to get by means of to customer support employees when contacting the airline due to insufficient buyer cellphone strains, it mentioned.

BA responded: “We’re very sorry that at the height of the unprecedented pandemic – when we were unfortunately forced to cancel thousands of flights and close some call centres due to government restrictions – our customers experienced slightly longer wait times to reach customer service teams.”

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“During this period, we acted lawfully at all times and offered customers the flexibility of rebooking travel on different dates, or claiming a refund if their flights were cancelled.”

The United Kingdom’s flag provider airline is being credited $550,000 (£438,793) towards the penalty as a result of in 2020 and 2021 it paid greater than $40m in refunds to clients with non-refundable tickets.

Since the beginning of the pandemic greater than 5 million refunds have been issued, BA added.

Other airways have additionally been fined by the division for not issuing well timed refunds by the US Transportation Department. Chilean airline LATAM was ordered to pay $1m after it and associates delayed refunds.

In the UK the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) launched an investigation to see if airways breached authorized rights by failing to supply money refunds for flights that customers couldn’t lawfully take attributable to COVID-19 lockdown guidelines.

The CMA concluded the regulation did not present passengers with a sufficiently clear proper to a refund within the uncommon circumstances of the pandemic and closed its examination.

BA is owned by IAG (International Airlines Group) who additionally personal Vueling and Aer Lingus.