Flight ticket reimbursement after Travel Warning

Question

I've got a round-trip flight with Royal Air Maroc from Strasbourg, France (SXB) to Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso (OUA) on Monday, Nov 10. Return is on Dec 1. The recent turmoils in Ouagadougou have led the US Department of State for Travels to issue a travel warning, which is why I'd like to refrain from the trip.

Any chance I can get a reimbursement for my tickets? In Germany (where I live), an official travel warning can help you get a refund when you book a trip with a tour operator/travel agency, but in this case I booked the flight directly with a non-German airline, so German law surely doesn't apply here.

EDIT: Sorry for failing to state this earlier, but I had already called the airline as suggested in the answers. They had told me it's not possible to get a refund with my standard fare. However, I understand that sometimes you really have to bargain to get a refund, so I wanted to learn about similar experiences and possibly about some hard (legal) facts that I could bring forward.

Answer 1

Refunds for Refundable Tickets Only

I checked the legal notice of Royal Air Maroc. The pdf of the notice can be downloaded here, enjoy the read.:)

The conditions to get a refund depend on your ticket fare. If you bought a refundable ticket then you can get a refund. If not you can't. This is very common amongst airlines: they don't care the reason for your cancellation, they just check the fare.

Having said this I did not find anything regarding cancellation on the grounds of the destination country currently being considered "not safe" for tourist. You could assume that if things escalate, the airline itself will refuse to fly passengers there, and wait for them to cancel the flight. At which point you would get a refund as per the legal notice. Or you could (read: should) call the airline and ask them.

Force Majeure

The legal notice says that non-refundable tickets might be refunded in case of impossibility of travelling due to Force Majeure:

Art. III, Par. 1 (e):

If a Passenger possesses a Ticket, as described in paragraph (d) above [partially or non-refundable tickets], which they have not used and if it is impossible for them to travel for reasons of Force Majeure, as defined in Article I, the Carrier shall credit the Passenger for the amount of their non-refundable Ticket, for a subsequent journey and subject to reasonable administrative fees, provided that the Passenger informs the Carrier as soon as possible prior to the date of the light and provides proof of such instance of Force Majeure.

The definition of Force Majeure provided in the legal notice is:

Force Majeure

means circumstances that are external to the party citing them and that are abnormal and unpredictable, the consequences of which could not have been avoided despite all the care and attention exercised.

I fear this is typical legalese meaning everything and nothing at the same time. Sounds to me like bottom line is that the airline reserves the right to decide what Force Majeure is, and what it's not.

In your specific case I think it would be possible for them to argue that since it's safe for their crew to fly, it's safe for you too. IMHO force Majeure would be an illness, sudden death, or such circumstances which you really cannot predict and definitely disallow you to travel.

Answer 2

As a rule of thumb, travel warnings do not give you any "right" to a refund directly from an airline. However, as a courtesy, some (better) airlines will let you cancel or change flights for free at their own discretion, eg. Singapore Airlines waived charges during the May 2014 coup in Thailand, so it's definitely worth calling up and asking. And if the excrement hits the rotary ventilator to such an extent that the airlines start canceling flights, you are of course entitled to a full refund.

It's also worth noting that most travel insurance policies will not cover any costs associated with political unrest, although a few (random example: Virgin Money) will cover costs incurred if you're already in the country when the trouble starts and before the warning was issued.

But if the airline is still flying, and you choose not to fly, that's too bad as far as the insurance is concerned. Of course, if you choose to fly and get beaten up by a mob, the insurance company will also claim you did so willingly despite the travel warning, and are thus not entitled to anything. Great line of business innit?