If you've booked a trip away with somebody who can no longer travel and want to give the ticket to someone else, you are often faced with charges so steep that it can be cheaper to buy a new ticket.
With some airlines, it's actually cheaper to change someone's name by deed poll - to make it the same as original booked passenger's name - and order a new passport to match the new name than it is to change the name on the flight tickets.
Airport Parking Shop looked at 27 popular airlines and found huge differences in the fees some charge for changing names on a ticket.
Some, like British Airways and KLM, do not charge at all, depending on your ticket type. Others, including EasyJet will make minor corrections, such as misspelled names, for free.
Ryanair will correct misspellings of up to three characters for free. But if you want to give the ticket to a someone else, or completely change the name of the passenger, it could cost up to £320 per trip, based on Ryanair's charge of £160 per flight if the change is made more than two days after the booking is made.
It costs between £9.50 and £15.99 to change a name by deed poll, while a new passport can be bought for £75.50. That means it's cheaper to legally change a name and get a new passport to match the name on a Ryanair booking, than it is to swap a booked passenger's name for someone else's. Legally changing a name to match the name on the booking and getting the new passport would cost as little as £85, compared to £160 to amend the Ryanair booking, or potentially £320 to do so for a return trip.
Of the airlines that charge for name corrections, TUI is the cheapest, at £25 if done with at least two weeks notice. EasyJet charge £25 per flight for a name change at least 60 days before travel, rising to £50 per flight when the flight is less than 60 days away. Jet2 charge a £35 fee, Flybe charge £50 per flight and Vueling charge fees of at least £50 per flight .
Alice Fowler, product manager at Airport Parking Shop said: "The Airport Parking Shop Study showed that more often than not, a fee will be charged for a name correction. We would advise that before booking travellers check the airline’s correction policies, as although some airlines make it very easy to change the name on a ticket, with the likes of TUI charging as little as £25 and EasyJet £50, others such as Ryanair, Flybe and Vueling don’t and charge a significant fee, which in some cases can be more than the cost of the flight.
"Some of these fees are overly steep and it appears that the airlines are benefiting from their customers’ misfortunes if they can no longer travel and want to pass the ticket on to someone else."
ChronicleLive has contacted Ryanair to ask why it charges so much to change names on flight tickets.
