Highest German court rules pax can fly on any date after cancellation (Art 8 1c)
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There was a very interesting and significant judgement in the BGH that was decided two weeks ago. Which funnily enough supports the interpretation that I and other posters have previously stated regarding Article 8.
When a flight is cancelled there is no need for a link between the date of the original trip and passengers desired new dates, so long as new the flights are carried out by the same airline.
To be clear, this pertains only to EC261 (Article 8 Para 1, C), the right to re-routing at a later date. This is the BGH’s interpretation of the Regulation.
I’ve long held the view that you could theoretically enforce earliest re-routing on OAL but I’ve never felt it was possible to also force that for trips at a later date as it would be an abuse of costs and it was only for the same airline/group. That fits with the general principles of the Basic Law to mitigate costs.
BGH is Germany’s highest Court.
This would only affect tickets with LH and those ex-DE with other carriers where EC261 applies in the first place.
Obviously its subject to the BGB for the statute of limitations for transport, which IIRC, is 3 years.
Funnily enough, 3 years is exactly the mysterious validity on LH tickets to be flown without calculation, on any date, LHG only something that would cause BA (A British Original) and CEDR to have a hissy fit.
Decision is not yet published.
Source: https://www.lto.de/recht/nachrichten/n/bgh-xzr5022-fluggastrecht-annullierung-termin-frei-waehlen/Yessssss
At least in EU, there is sense !!!Obvs tailored to suit LH 🙂 , but fair enough
It will be interesting to read the full judgment (and to see if LH appeals to the CJEU), but from the press article it doesn’t really advance matters much, particularly if it doesn’t address the ticket validity issue which is the problem many have encountered where many cases have been both won and lost. The article reports the passengers wanted to rebook “a few months later” something LH didn’t allow, but BA did. The cases reported here were frequently from people wanting to defer their booking for a year or who had not contacted BA for an extended period and then ran into difficulties. The interpretation of “at the passenger’s convenience” and the interplay between that and ticket validity, plus the reasonableness of the passenger’s request in the specific circumstances of their case will still be a matter for the local courts or ADR to decide.
It will be interesting to read the full judgment (and to see if LH appeals to the CJEU), but from the press article it doesn’t really advance matters much, particularly if it doesn’t address the ticket validity issue which is the problem many have encountered where many cases have been both won and lost. The article reports the passengers wanted to rebook “a few months later” something LH didn’t allow, but BA did. The cases reported here were frequently from people wanting to defer their booking for a year or who had not contacted BA for an extended period and then ran into difficulties. The interpretation of “at the passenger’s convenience” and the interplay between that and ticket validity, plus the reasonableness of the passenger’s request in the specific circumstances of their case will still be a matter for the local courts or ADR to decide.
If it is correct that the change is restricted to flights on the same carrier, that’s a fairly bizarre interpretation and much less generous than that of the CAA.
Tickets are “valid” three years by way of this judgement. There is no issue with ticket validity because its a concept of airline rules, not law, EC261 is only enforceable if there is irregularity. BA could make a ticket 6 months validity if that is the contract as agreed for voluntary changes, once EC261 kicks in, you could still fly that ex-DE BA ticket within 3 years according to the BGH. Ticket validity just doesn’t come into it in DE.
If you wanna fly more than 3 years after your original trip, tough luck.
People are posting here that BA allow only -7/+14 days which is clearly posted on BA Trade Support. This judgement sets out 3 years by the Courts. Until that trickles down, in my experience for new cancellations (not 2020/1 tickets) it’s one year from the date of travel to give new dates. Effectively, 2 or more years.
Let me be clear once again how it’s chalk and cheese to BA and its -7/+14 days.
If you book a LH flight tomorrow, for travel on 10 December 23 and the flight is cancelled, you have until 10 December 2024 to give LH the new dates, and you can fly on any date that is available, on any LHG flight (ie switching to LX, OS, SN, EW, EN), in the same compartment (not RBD) for not a penny extra. Ticket validity, which would be one year from today, is irrelevant. An email will drop giving you four options, a refund, picking new dates now, accepting rebooking to robot-booked flights or using the ticket later. The latter is merely to free up space on the new TK segments and your rights are not rescinded if you do nothing.
UN, is UN.
Very few passengers, ones I am sure you’d say are egregious, would be unhappy with the present LH rules.
The BGH makes a distinction between earliest opportunity, which of course is enforceable on other carriers and there’s been plenty of cases in DE, including a group chartering a Private Jet in place of a cancelled Eurowings flight being reasonable. In fact, that area of law is largely settled. It was the later routing that was up in the air.
The lawyer who was assisting the consumer centre with the case has many such cases for tickets going back to 2020.
What surprised me about the judgement is that in practice, LH already does permit 3 years especially for old tickets, which as I wrote earlier is obviously not mysterious because it’s the statute of limitations.
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