Claiming compensation for flight delays

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• richie says:

  26 Aug26 August 06:32

  this is what refund me have sent me regarding my case and current status:

  OnJune 11 2014, the Court of Appeal ruled that airlines could not claim normal technical problems as ‘extraordinary circumstances’ to escape paying compensation for flight delays. The case was brought by a passenger, Ron Huzar, who suffered a 27-hour delay on a Jet2 flight from Malaga to Manchester in 2011.

  This decision means under the terms of regulation EU261 airlines must pay compensation to passengers for delays of more than three hours.

  However, Jet2.com have since filed an application to the Supreme Court, the highest Court in England and Wales, seeking permission to appeal the judgment. The Supreme Court must now decide whether or not they wish to grant leave (permission) to appeal. A decision is anticipated in October 2014.

  Unfortunately the result for you is more waiting. Currently all cases affected by Huzar v Jet2.com are stayed (on hold).

• joe says:

  26 Aug26 August 06:39

  Am I lucky or unlucky?
  From 2012-2013, four long haul delays and 2,400 Euros, each claim was made direct through BA.Com and settled in six weeks. Always ensure you get information from from BA staff about the reasons, one example, December last year 8 hour delay from PVG-LHR, Captain said the delay was due to minor damage to the hold when the aircraft was loaded at Heathrow and had to be repaired there. This was mentioned in the claim and no quibble from BA.
  But so many PAX are just not informed by BA that they are entitled to this, I think in future I will make some special cards …200 x 600 x 25%….just a joke ..!!

  • Volker says:

    26 Aug26 August 07:34

    I had one case so far: BA, claim on BA.com, cheque arrived within weeks. Straight forward and simple, therefore I would try again in a future case before giving part of my money to a third party.

  • Saurabh says:

    26 Aug26 August 09:32

    Hi Joe, Volker,
    My flight got delayed very recently (around 4th July). After returning from my vacations, i filed a complaint on BA.com on 8th. I did get an auto mailer, however did not receive anything further. I have tried to chase it up twice quoting the same complaint number but no response so far.
    Did you guys send any posts as well or call them up? Not sure what else to do.

• Frenske says:

  26 Aug26 August 06:42

  I hope this will not lead to situations where the decision whether a plane with a mechanical fault should fly or not is being rushed to save in the order of 25000 euros.

  • GP says:

    26 Aug26 August 18:27

    Safety is clearly being overlooked in favour of the compensation culture with this. This is of a great deal of concern to me and I hope to all travellers.

• Sam Wardill says:

  26 Aug26 August 07:13

  I have had three cases. In all three cases the airline refused payment and I had to lodge a court claim. Two of the claims were in UK (air France and Swiss air) and were settled before the court date. They were easy. The third against aer Arran has to be lodged in an eu court as aer Arran don’t have a uk address. Also with the third the Irish regulator (incorrectly I believe) denied my claim. Therefore I am using the folks at EUDELAY. They will earn their money with this case but they have not complained. I can’t fault them to date. Incidentally they agree with me the the Irish regulator incorrectly denied my claim.

  To the point made by Frenske, I think it is highly unlikely that the regulation will lead to airlines operating unsafely. The potential cost of operating unsafely is already far too high. The regulation should, however, eventually result in airlines operating more reliably. I think we are already seeing some of the benefits. It has been a long slog because the airlines have spent their energy fighting the law rather than complying with it.

• James says:

  26 Aug26 August 07:46

  I wonder where you would stand with ATC delays into busy airports? One could argue that extended holds at LHR for example are not unexpected and therefore diverts resulting from such holds shouldn’t really happen where the weather etc is good.

  • TimS says:

    26 Aug26 August 07:58

    ATC holds are usually outside the control of the airline though.

    Unavailable/insufficient gates, priority inbounds from other airlines etc. None of those things are within the operating airline’s control and therefore could not be reasonably foreseen.

    I am aware of a few occasions of crew intentionally taking ages to taxi to stand but this is rar and almost never at the airline’s instruction.
    (One FO i know took 20 mins from landing to stand at DEL and was going so slowly that the tower twice asked if everything was OK and if he needed assistance!)

    • Sam Wardill says:

      26 Aug26 August 21:50

      The law doesn’t say that compensation is not due if the failure was due to a cause that was not within the airlines operation control. The law states “if it can prove that the cancellation is caused by extraordinary circumstances which could not have been avoided even if all reasonable measures had been taken”. The reasonable measures that might need to have been taken could be by the airport or by air traffic control. It is up to the airline to contract with their suppliers (such as airports and air traffic control) to ensure that these suppliers take all reasonable measures to avoid flight cancellation and delay.

      • TimS says:

        26 Aug26 August 22:49

        It isn’t as simple as that. Airlines cannot contract with ATC and airports in the way you suggest.

        Major carriers don’t even have that sort of control on a macro level, let alone a specific flight/micro level.

        Given the volume of movements happening every hour, it would be impossible for ATC to consider bespoke contracts for each airline! Their interest is getting everyone up and down safely and efficiently, not prioritising metal based on revenue factors.

        • Sam Wardill says:

          27 Aug27 August 04:59

          Ok. But look at the wording of the law. If ATC cause a delay because of a SNAFU can this really be described as an “extraordinary circumstances which could not have been avoided even if all reasonable measures had been taken”? Compensation can clearly not be avoided because an ATC SNAFU does not fall under this exception.

          Regardless of any specific contract term the ATC would be likely to be in breach of of a general contractual duty to provide its service with reasonable care and skill. I don’t know the wording of the contracts but there must be some sort of obligation and, if there is not, then the airlines can lobby EU governments to introduce one (rather than lobbying to change EU261). Assuming there was a general breach of contract then airlines would be entitled to pursue the ATC for the loss incurred as a result of that.

          If I had a delay under such a situation I would certainly pursue a claim. My view is that it it only when ATCs start to be held to account for the cost of their failures they will start to take actions to reduce them. This is the whole intent of this (EU261) law and why I personally feel so passionately about it.

• Lucy says:

  26 Aug26 August 08:03

  I wrote to BA twice about the 7 hour delay we had from JFK to LHR (all sitting on the tarmac waiting for a spare part). They denied my claim both times citing extraordinary circumstances. I have handed the claim over to Bott & Co to avoid the hassle. Unlikely to see any movement on this for a while as the airlines are asking for leave to appeal again……

• Aoife says:

  26 Aug26 August 08:27

  Per the flyertalk thread, it seems that BA only tend to pay out if the delay is above 3 hours. Thats always confused me.

• Ashley says:

  26 Aug26 August 08:36

  We had a delay from Humberside to Larnaca in Oct 2010 of about 16-18 hours. We were given a letter at the time but no longer have it. How do I trace details of this flight to claim for the 4 tickets purchased?

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