A passenger kicked off a flight for having an allergy shared their situation with Money. What can you do if you’re ever affected – especially when airlines drag their feet over a refund?
Tuesday 11 March 2025 08:19, UK
By James Sillars, business and economics reporter
Calm after the market storm? I wouldn’t bet on it, but the worst of the bleeding appears to have been stemmed, for now.
After five straight trading days of losses, the FTSE 100 has opened slightly lower while other major indices across Europe are steady.
Struggles here on Monday followed losses in Asia and preceded a bloodbath for values in the US.
Much of the declines were blamed on Donald Trump failing to rule out a (self-inflicted) US recession during a TV interview.
The latest trade war-linked market jitters saw the tech-focused Nasdaq fall 4% – its worst performance since September 2022.
In cash terms, that equated to a loss of $1trn.
The broad S&P 500 was 2.7%.
Here’s a stat for you: The combined market value of the S&P’s constituent companies is now $4trn down on the peak seen just last month.
Wow. What a turnaround in investor thinking.
Don’t forget that during February, Wall Street was singing from the rooftops over Trump’s tariff agenda.
The biggest individual loser on Monday, in cash terms, was Tesla – run by the president’s cheerleader Elon Musk.
It dropped 15% ($125bn) to seal its worst day since September 2020.
The dire performances on Monday built on earlier losses that have seen US stock market values fall well below those seen at the start of Trump 2.0.
There were falls in Asia on Tuesday but the declines were measured. The Hang Seng in Hong Kong recovered to trade positively.
US futures pointed to a tentative recovery at the open – as witnessed in Europe – but market analysts have warned that the mood could turn very quickly.
After its 0.9% decline to start the week, the FTSE was 0.3% down at 8,581.
One consequence of the market focus on a slowing US economy, coupled with renewed concerns over China’s health after it fell back into deflation during February, is falling oil prices.
We are certainly set for declines in fuel pump costs by the end of the month. Brent crude is trading at $69 a barrel.
The oil benchmark has fallen back steadily since mid-January but the momentum gathered pace last week when a three-year low was struck.
If you’re already feeling overwhelmed by the sheer amount of news to ingest on Donald Trump’s tariffs plans in recent weeks, well, you’re not alone.
One measure of “policy uncertainty”, which examines how much certain issues are dominating news coverage, shows that the uncertainty levels over trade are currently higher than they’ve been in decades.
But even that index struggles to capture the extent of uncertainty. Will the on-again off-again tariffs on Canada and Mexico actually be implemented? What about the tariffs on steel and aluminium, due to be implemented this week?
So far, the only tariffs that have actually taken effect are the extra 10% levies imposed on China a few weeks ago. But then Trump has since talked about an extra 10% on top of that, not to mention a set of “reciprocal tariffs” intended mostly to hit the European Union. It’s very hard to keep pace with it all.
However, one of the impacts of all this uncertainty is that US share prices have been performing far worse than their international counterparts.
Many had assumed, based on his behaviour last time around, that Trump would shy away from any decisions causing long-term damage to share prices, but the S&P 500 index is down more than 6% since the inauguration, compared with a 12% rise in Germany’s currency-adjusted index. Some are calling it the “Trump Slump”.
Markets don’t like uncertainty; nor do they like inflation, especially the kind caused by tariffs, which impose an extra cost on all imported items. Whether this is a price worth paying rather depends on what the White House intends to achieve from this.
The ostensible goal – beyond extracting something from countries like China and Canada – is to seek to reindustrialise the US by preventing manufactured goods from entering quite so easily. But is that likely to happen?
Have a watch on my analysis here…
Every Tuesday we answer your financial problems or consumer disputes. WhatsApp us yours here or send it to moneyblog@sky.uk.
Today’s Money Problem is…
I was recently thrown off a Turkish Airlines flight due to my severe nut allergy. Despite telling them this ahead of time, after I boarded the flight they made me disembark. The airline refused to stop serving nuts on the four-hour flight. I ended up booking another flight with British Airways – which was brilliant – but now Turkish Airlines is refusing to refund my original flight. They say I didn’t turn up at all, despite me having a baggage tag and boarding pass showing I did. I have tried to do a chargeback with Amex, but this was also initially declined because Turkish Airlines told them I didn’t show up, so it’s my fault for not taking the flight.
Isla
Megan Harwood-Baynes, cost of living specialist, says…
Flying is stressful enough without the added worry of an allergy meaning you get kicked off the plane.
You sent me the correspondence you had with Turkish Airlines, which I can see had largely gone unanswered. It was particularly frustrating that the airline was now trying to claim you didn’t show up for the flight – you even showed me a receipt from a bar that was on the departure side of the airport, as well as text messages between your family, with photos, that documented your experience.
You told me you tried to take your complaint to the Civil Aviation Authority, but because the airline is not UK-based, they could not help you.
This has left you out of pocket to the tune of the £544 original flight and £903 you had to spend on the last-minute British Airways ticket.
‘Airline cannot chuck you off’
Helen Dewdney, aka the Complaining Cow, told me you were entitled to a refund for the flight, which you could not take through no fault of your own.
“It’s my understanding an airline cannot chuck you off for having an allergy,” she said.
She is certainly correct – according to Anaphylaxis UK, under UK law and EU regulations, passengers with medical conditions (including food allergies) must not face discrimination. Airlines should make reasonable accommodations to support you if you have a medical requirement.
That being said, each airline sets its own rules, and because there is no one standard it can be really confusing. This also isn’t the first time Turkish Airlines has done something like this. In 2022, a family told The Independent they were all kicked off the flight because of their six-year-old daughter’s allergy.
A spokesperson for the UK Civil Aviation Authority told me: “Anyone who believes that they were incorrectly refused boarding should complain to the airline in the first instance.
“If unsatisfied with the airline’s response, the complaint should then be escalated to the appointed alternative dispute resolution provider.
“The provider will assess the details of the case and deliver an independent and binding decision that the airline must abide by.”
What did Turkish Airlines say?
The airline’s own website states it “cannot ensure our aircraft is free of nuts, such as hazelnuts and peanuts”.
“The meals and treats served on our flights may include hazelnuts, or peanuts and other foodstuffs,” the T&Cs say.
“If passengers with hazelnut and peanut allergies state their allergies via Turkish Airlines sales channels up to 48 hours before their flight, an allergen-free menu will be made ready for the passenger. The menu will be exclusive for the passenger with the food allergy and there shall be no changes in the menus served to the other passengers.
“However, we cannot guarantee that other passengers will not bring foodstuffs containing nuts, and nut particles may spread in the aircraft during the flight through the air conditioning system.”
So what can be done?
I contacted Turkish Airlines and Amex to find out the status of your complaint and see if they were any closer to resolving this issue for you.
Turkish Airlines did not reply to my request for answers, but within 48 hours of me reaching out to them, they finally replied to your complaint (I’ll let you decide if that’s a coincidence or not).
They offered you a full refund of your flight (£524), which they said would be back in your account within a week, as well as a cheque for €600 – equivalent to roughly £500 – in compensation.
However, we touched base over a month after Turkish Airlines said they had refunded the original flight amount to your credit card – you said it still hadn’t arrived, but they disputed this. You even sent them copies of your credit card bill.
I emailed them again – two days later, you were finally sent the refund for your flight (£524). The £500 they have said they will pay in compensation has yet to be received.
Amex also did not reply, and says the dispute has been closed.
My only advice going forward would be to really consider which airline you are flying with if you have an allergy – it seems some are much more accommodating than others, and there is not much recourse for forcing compensation – even though in this case even the airline agreed you are due it.
This feature is not intended as financial advice – the aim is to give an overview of the things you should think about. Submit your dilemma or consumer dispute via:
Stamp prices will rise for the sixth time in three years next month, Royal Mail has said.
A first-class stamp will set you back £1.70 from 7 April – up from £1.65.
The cost of a second-class stamp will rise 2p to 87p.
Royal Mail, which was fined £10.5m for failing to meet delivery targets last year, said the spiralling prices are due to the “increasing cost of delivering mail”.
It means first-class stamps have more than doubled in price in the past five years – they cost 76p in 2020.
Tom MacInnes, director of policy at Citizens Advice, said the price increase is “yet another blow to consumers”.
“While stamp prices continue to climb, millions of people face post delays every year. Royal Mail hasn’t met an annual delivery target for five years, but consumers will pay 124% more for a first-class stamp, and 34% more for a second-class stamp, than they did in 2020,” he said.
Care home fees have risen to an average of nearly £1,400 a week, research by a leading healthcare market data firm has found.
Rising wages and upcoming hikes to employers’ national insurance contributions are behind the increasing fees, Laing Buisson said.
The price people pay for care can depend on the level of help needed and where they live.
Residential care, which doesn’t provide medical support, often costs less than nursing care, which is more suitable for those with a long-standing health condition or complex needs.
Laing Buisson found nursing care costs an average of around £1,372 a week in England, compared with residential care at costs £1,042.
Those in the South East paid the most in fees at £1,579 for nursing care and £1,243 for residential care.
Here’s a closer look at the regional breakdown…
Our live news reporter Bhvishya Patel looked at the burden placed on unpaid carers in a series for Money last year…
Billionaire Richard Branson’s Virgin Group is trying to raise £700m to fund its plan to launch a rival to the Eurostar.
The company has said it wants to create cross-channel rail services that will connect London with Paris, Brussels and eventually Amsterdam.
The high-frequency service would be the first direct rival to Eurostar’s 30-year-old network and could launch as soon as 2029, it said.
“The cross-Channel route is ripe for change and would benefit from competition,” a spokesperson said.
“While Virgin is not committing to launching a service just yet, we are seeking investment from like-minded partners to invest alongside Virgin and we are delighted with the progress made so far.”
Amid the market volatility sparked by Donald Trump’s on-off tariff plans – during which the benchmark S&P 500 index fell by 3.1% last week and the Nasdaq entered “correction” territory – no stock has been more badly hit than Tesla.
Shares of Elon Musk’s electric vehicle maker have fallen for seven straight weeks, the longest losing streak since the company floated on the stock market 15 years ago, wiping out more or less all the gains it enjoyed after Trump was elected president in November last year.
Since Tesla shares peaked at $479.86 each on 17 December, they have fallen by 45%, wiping more than $800bn from the company’s stock market value.
To put it in context, that sum is roughly equivalent to Poland’s annual economic output.
And there may be worse to come.
Wall Street analysts have been rushing to downgrade Tesla stock.
A quarter of the 40 brokerages covering the stock currently rate it a “strong sell”, with one of them – Guggenheim Securities – suggesting the shares could fall another 30% from here.
There are a number of reasons behind the fall.
Trump’s orbit
Those who deplore Musk’s political views and his close proximity to the Trump administration will doubtless cite this as the key factor.
It has certainly played a part. Musk’s recent antics, such as wielding a chainsaw on stage at a political conference and making a gesture on stage that some interpreted as a Nazi salute, have not endeared him or his companies to a swathe of the public both in the US and beyond.
There have been protests and outbreaks of vandalism at Tesla dealerships and EV charging points across the US while, in both Europe and China, Tesla orders in January were down 45% year-on-year.
Admittedly, a lot of the people staging protests at Tesla properties are unlikely to have been would-be buyers of the company’s products, but the bigger problem is that Musk now appears to be alienating customers who were previously loyal to the brand – as shown by the popularity, in the US, of Tesla bumper stickers with messages such as “I bought this before Elon went crazy” and “Anti-Elon Tesla Club”.
Distractions
Conversely, some investors who wholly approve of the work Musk is doing for the Trump administration may also have concerns – notably that it is proving too much of a distraction from the day job of running Tesla.
Even before Musk took the wheel at the US Department Of Government Efficiency (DOGE), there were already fears that he was being too distracted by his private companies, including the social media platform X (formerly Twitter), the aerospace and defence contractor SpaceX and his artificial intelligence business xAI.
X, on which lies peddled by the Kremlin about Ukraine are regularly amplified, may also be adding to the damage being done to the Tesla brand.
But Musk’s association with the Trump administration is only part of the reason for the recent declines.
Inflated prices?
Another key factor is that shares of Tesla were arguably over-priced to begin with.
In the two weeks following the US presidential election, Tesla shares shot up by 32%, adding $250bn to its stock market value.
To put that into context, that gain was equal to the entire stock market value of Toyota, the world’s next biggest carmaker after Tesla.
At the time its shares peaked, Tesla shares were trading at 112 times expected earnings, compared with the 25 times or so that the S&P 500 was trading at and higher even than the company’s average over the last five years of 93.
Again, to put things in context, Ford shares are valued at just eight times prospective earnings.
That exotic rating reflected the superlative growth prospects previously accorded to Tesla, in particular Musk’s pledges to launch a new cut-price electric vehicle and a fully autonomous ride-hailing service.
Wrong priorities?
But investors are now reappraising those growth prospects as Tesla loses share of the electric vehicle market to rivals, such as China’s BYD, which is also seen as outpacing the company on self-driving vehicle technology.
News on Tesla’s planned new low-cost model remains elusive and, until it is launched, critics believe it has little hope of building share in burgeoning markets such as India.
Musk always wanted Tesla to be seen as an AI and robotics company rather than an electric vehicle maker and that was part of the bull case for the stock.
Yet there are now fears that the company is investing too much in such projects and on its much-criticised Cybertrucks.
Another concern is that Tesla’s core operations may be misfiring.
Results published at the end of January revealed that operating profits for the final three months of 2024 were down 23% on the same period a year earlier – which Tesla blamed on lower average selling prices on each of its Model 3, Model Y, Model X and Model S lines.
For the full year, deliveries of new vehicles were down on 2023, the first year-on-year fall the company has suffered.
And the operating margin, partly reflecting the sums Tesla is investing, were also lower.
It all adds up to an unpleasant cocktail for investors.
A little earlier, Sky News’ business and economics reporter James Sillars gave a bleak analysis of the US economy, with one economic indicator suggesting it was shrinking at its fastest pace since the pandemic.
Things are hardly looking up after markets opened a short while ago, with Wall Street’s main indexes falling amid fears a trade war could spark an economic slowdown.
The tech-heavy Nasdaq and the benchmark S&P 500 were at near five-month lows after falling 1.3% and 2.03%, respectively.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.72%.
“It’s been a very rough patch for markets and all of that centres around uncertainty over tariffs,” said Art Hogan, chief market strategist at B. Riley Wealth.
Nvidia was down 2.2%, Meta and Amazon.com were down more than 3% each and Tesla was down 7%.
JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs declined more than 3% each.
Trump declined to predict whether the US could face a recession yesterday, at a time when investors are concerned that his fluctuating trade policies on Mexico, Canada and China could dampen consumer demand and corporate investment.
Chinese retaliatory tariffs on a wide range of US agricultural products take effect today.
A Reuters poll showed 91% of economists see higher recession risks due to Trump’s shifting trade policies.
Overpaying even a little amount on your mortgage could shave years off your term and save you thousands of pounds in interest – and could be an alternative to sticking spare cash in a low-paying ISA.
The first question is: Should you do it?
This is hugely dependent on your financial circumstances but ask yourself:
Let’s talk interest…
Compare the cost of your savings interest with the amount you would be paying in interest on your mortgage.
David Hollingworth, an associate director at L&C Mortgages, says some borrowers may still be on really low rates of 1% or 2%.
“You may well earn more by saving that money,” he says – though you need to take into account that any interest you earn could be subject to income tax
But more typically, if you’ve got a higher mortgage rate, you’ll save more by putting it towards your mortgage.
Okay, but what does that mean in numbers…
If you overpay a mortgage at a rate of 4.5%, to get the same effective return where you,re paying tax on savings, David says you would need to earn the following gross savings rate:
Basic rate: 5.63%
Higher rate: 7.50%
Additional rate: 8.18%
What are financial benefits?
A borrower with a £200,000 repayment mortgage over 25 years at a rate of 4.50% would pay £1,111.66 a month.
Overpaying by £50 a month would cut the total interest by £11,534 and the mortgage would be repaid one year and nine months early.
And £100 a month would cut the total interest by £21,142 and the mortgage would be repaid three years and five months early.
What about an offset mortgage?
These link your current and savings accounts to your mortgage. The balance of the two is offset, so you pay interest on a lower balance.
So let’s say you have a mortgage balance of £100,000 and £20,000 in savings. You will only be charged interest on £80,000.
“The main benefit,” David says, “is you can keep cash in savings and withdraw them if you need them.”
What are the drawbacks?
Of course, it feels a bit like sending money into a vast black hole (there’s nothing more humbling than transferring £20 towards a six-figure balance) so create a spreadsheet to help yourself keep track and stay motivated.
The other drawback is any money you send towards your mortgage, you won’t have in easy access savings. So make sure that emergency fund is available. The last thing you want to do is end up reborrowing from your mortgage if the roof caves in.
“Paying everything off the mortgage, while it may look great because you’re reducing your mortgage more quickly, the danger is that you need some of that cash for a later date,” David says.
While he says this can work really well, “you need to look at the margin in the range”.
“You need to be realistic about how big a proportion of the mortgage you are likely to have in the savings account,” he says.
“So the bigger the margin in mortgage rate, the more you’re going to need in savings to make up that difference.”
How do you actually do it?
This question confused me for about two years after getting my mortgage, until I realised, it’s actually just another bank account.
I looked up the account details with my lender and set them up as a payee on my current account. Now, whenever we have extra money I want to put towards it, I can just send the money the same way I would any other payment.
This can vary from lender to lender, but they should have all the details on their website.
If you like things being automated, there are now companies out there who can help.
Sprive is an app that helps you earn cashback that can be deposited towards your mortgage – you buy digital cards for your shopping and the money back is then paid directly to your lender.
By Alexandra Rogers, political reporter
Residents who live near newly installed pylons will get £250-a-year off their energy bills, a minister has said.
Housing and planning minister Alex Norris told Wilfred Frost on Sky News Breakfast that communities “need to share the benefits” of the government’s tilt towards clean energy.
“If you’re making that sacrifice of having some of the infrastructure in your community, you should get some of the money back,” he said.
“So we’re making that commitment – £250 a year if you are near those pylons.
“We think that’s a fair balance between people who are making that commitment to the country… they should be rewarded for that.”
Ministers are pushing through an overhaul of the planning system – long seen as a brake on housebuilding and vital infrastructure projects – to stimulate growth in the economy.
Overnight, it was announced parts of the planning system could be stripped away as part of the government’s attempts to speed up house building.
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