Research conducted by the BBC has revealed that some of the claims made by passengers stranded by the volcanic ash cloud over Europe earlier this year have been somewhat extreme. One customer has apparently applied to get the money he spent hiring a private jet to get him home reimbursed. Another passenger has asked that the bill for a week’s worth of lobster dinners be picked up by one airline.

Some airlines are taking longer than others to process claims from disrupted passengers. Virgin Atlantic claims that it has managed to process 95 per cent of the 6,000 ticket refund requests it received. However, the airline also told the BBC that it had received a large number of expense claims for meals, hotel rooms and telephone bills. Although Virgin said it hoped to have sorted the majority of the claims by the end of the month, so far only about half the claims have been dealt with.

Ryanair claims that it has already spent £42 million settling refunds on more than a million tickets. The budget carrier added that it still had 120,000 expense claims for hotels and food to work through.

Customers making claims through major travel companies such as Thomas Cook and Tui Travel seem to have had their claims dealt with quickly. Thomas Cook told the BBC that it had dealt with most of its claims within seven days of receiving them.

Tui Travel said that it had 63 claims left to sort out, all of which had been received within the last two and a half weeks.