EC261 and UK261 Discussion: Successes and Failures

[Himeno]

It might have been the specific mechanical issues were in fact, ‘extraordinary’. In an of themselves mechanical issues don’t escape EU/UK261.

Your hotel and meals should have been covered for the 24 hour delay.

BA refused to have anything to do with it. EK never got an answer from them (or CX). Nothing happened to fix the problem until they got through to QF in SYD.
QF insisted on sending me to a hotel through the Dubai Connect thing (with transfers each way). I would have been happy to stay in the DXB Concourse A F lounge all day.

I don't think BA ever said exactly what sort of mechanical issue it was, they just outright denying that any mechanical issue was subject to the protections.

 

[Human]

I don't think BA ever said exactly what sort of mechanical issue it was, they just outright denying that any mechanical issue was subject to the protections

I’ve just had a read of the actual legislation. It’s quite interesting to see how much of what it says is downright ignored by the airlines and by EU member governments! (Eg. airlines have an “obligation” to inform all passengers of their rights in the case of delays or cancellations).

The legislation does give a partial list of what constitutes an “extraordinary circumstance”. One of the things listed is “unexpected flight safety shortcomings” (paragraph 14).

So I suppose an airline could argue that if a mechanical issue compromises or potentially compromises flight safety, then it does indeed constitute an “extraordinary circumstance”.

Regulation - 261/2004 - EN - Flight Compensation Regulation - EUR-Lex

eur-lex.europa.eu

 

[MEL_Traveller]

I’ve just had a read of the actual legislation. It’s quite interesting to see how much of what it says is downright ignored by the airlines and by EU member governments! (Eg. airlines have an “obligation” to inform all passengers of their rights in the case of delays or cancellations).

The legislation does give a partial list of what constitutes an “extraordinary circumstance”. One of the things listed is “unexpected flight safety shortcomings” (paragraph 14).

So I suppose an airline could argue that if a mechanical issue compromises or potentially compromises flight safety, then it does indeed constitute an “extraordinary circumstance”.

Regulation - 261/2004 - EN - Flight Compensation Regulation - EUR-Lex

eur-lex.europa.eu

The legislation is 20 years old now. The text has been the subject of many court cases, including final decisions by the central european court.

There’s little interpretation from reading the text… court cases have defined what is, and what isn't, extraordinary. Essentially ‘extraordinary’ must be beyond the airline’s control and not inherent in running an airline. Maintenance issues which affect safety are a fairly common occurrence. But very few of them are deemed ‘extraordinary’.

 

[serfty]

I don't think BA ever said exactly what sort of mechanical issue it was, they just outright denying that any mechanical issue was subject to the protections.

Case law has it that that mechanical issues ARE NOT EXTRAORDINARY generally being inherent in the operation of an airline.

This has been since 2008 with the decision in Wallentin Hermann -v- Alitalia (C-549/07) .

AirHelp - #1 Air Passenger Rights Experts | AirHelp

AirHelp - #1 Flight Compensation Experts ✅ Add your flight details and find out how much compensation you could be owed in 2 minutes!

flightdelaypay.com

It was upheld with the decision in the Huzar ~v~ Jet2 case in 2014.

Huzar v Jet2.com - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

If BA you have 6 years to revisit the claim.

 

[serfty]

Hi all,

My family of 4 had a recent trip departing from Europe via Doha. The CHP-DOH leg was delayed by 3 h, Qatar rebooked us to another flight for the 2nd leg, gave us hotel and food voucher in Doha (nice of them, but we were already in Doha on the way to Europe). We reached the final destination 16 h late. There is nothing i can do about being Qatared on both legs, missing out on the Quad Q suite for the family. but i will of course pursue the delay compensation according to EU261.

Contacted Qatar, they responded quite promptly after a few days, asking for copies of our passports, tickets, authorisation to act on behalf of the family, birth cert of our child who is under 18, etc. I supplied them with necessary documents, then dead silence.

It has been about 4 weeks.

Question to my braintrust: when should i start escalate this and contact the Danish National Enforcement Body (where the flight commenced)?

It has been a couple of month now - did you receive satisfactory compensation ?

 

[MEL_Traveller]

In good news the proposed changes to EU261, promoted by the airlines and the EU Council, have been blocked by MEPs.

The European parliament said it won’t entertain any watering down of the current time bands for delays.

Those time bands will stay at the starting point of three hours…. the airlines wanted at least four (hours) and preferably five.

So a win for consumers!

 

[nonimcinerney]

can anyone help with lodging a claim for this, my AA flight from LHR to LAX in January. We boarded sat taxied and returned all up approx 3 1/2 hours then flight cancelled waited to be bused into terminals and then had to wait until our turn to find out we had been booked on the later flight. We had to run to the gate to make the flight all up instead of landing in LAX at 3.20 we landed around 7.30.
Who do I claim this with or has anyone had any success with this type of claim.
Thanks

 

[MEL_Traveller]

can anyone help with lodging a claim for this, my AA flight from LHR to LAX in January. We boarded sat taxied and returned all up approx 3 1/2 hours then flight cancelled waited to be bused into terminals and then had to wait until our turn to find out we had been booked on the later flight. We had to run to the gate to make the flight all up instead of landing in LAX at 3.20 we landed around 7.30.
Who do I claim this with or has anyone had any success with this type of claim.
Thanks

It depends on the reason for the delay.

Were they due to extraordinary circumstances? Almost always they are not, so you’re therefore entitled to compensation based on the time of arrival.

For a flight of that length, with a delay of more than 4 hours on arrival, I believe is £520.

You can lodge the claim with AA directly, there should be a link on their website.

If AA doesn’t play ball, you can go through one of the many claim companies. They’ll take around 33%, but also deal with all the hassle.

 

[nonimcinerney]

It depends on the reason for the delay.

Were they due to extraordinary circumstances? Almost always they are not, so you’re therefore entitled to compensation based on the time of arrival.

For a flight of that length, with a delay of more than 4 hours on arrival, I believe is £520.

You can lodge the claim with AA directly, there should be a link on their website.

If AA doesn’t play ball, you can go through one of the many claim companies. They’ll take around 33%, but also deal with all the hassle.

Thanks I will try find something on the AA website and see how I go. They said at first it was nothing major had the engineers come out and check we then taxied back out but ended up going back and the engineers came again spent ages and apparently could not fix whatever the problem was and then I think the staff would have been over their hours allowed so flight was cancelled.

 

[serfty]

can anyone help with lodging a claim for this, my AA flight from LHR to LAX in January. We boarded sat taxied and returned all up approx 3 1/2 hours then flight cancelled waited to be bused into terminals and then had to wait until our turn to find out we had been booked on the later flight. We had to run to the gate to make the flight all up instead of landing in LAX at 3.20 we landed around 7.30.
Who do I claim this with or has anyone had any success with this type of claim.
Thanks

This comes under UK261/2004. The AA email address for such claims is [email protected]. This email is used for both EU and UK 261 claims.

For thorough detail, see this flyertalk thread:

https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/american-airlines-aadvantage/1437973-guide-ec-uk261-ec-261-2004-eu-complaints-compensation-aa.html

 

[Longtoo]

Hi all,

My family of 4 had a recent trip departing from Europe via Doha. The CHP-DOH leg was delayed by 3 h, Qatar rebooked us to another flight for the 2nd leg, gave us hotel and food voucher in Doha (nice of them, but we were already in Doha on the way to Europe). We reached the final destination 16 h late. There is nothing i can do about being Qatared on both legs, missing out on the Quad Q suite for the family. but i will of course pursue the delay compensation according to EU261.

Contacted Qatar, they responded quite promptly after a few days, asking for copies of our passports, tickets, authorisation to act on behalf of the family, birth cert of our child who is under 18, etc. I supplied them with necessary documents, then dead silence.

It has been about 4 weeks.

Question to my braintrust: when should i start escalate this and contact the Danish National Enforcement Body (where the flight commenced)?

Quick update, I submitted the claim about June 2025, got some correspondence from Qatar then it went into a dead silence. This week they sent me the Release form to sign and ask for banking details to pay the compensation for the 4 of us. it is stated that transaction will be done within 28 days.

 

[SCM]

Does anyone know how/where to submit these claims to Qatar Airways? They have an EU261 page which has zero information about how to actually lodge a claim.

 

[Longtoo]

Does anyone know how/where to submit these claims to Qatar Airways? They have an EU261 page which has zero information about how to actually lodge a claim.

this is what i have done:

Send a compensation request to Qatar Airways Customer Care <[email protected]>, quoting EC261

They responded after about 2 weeks with a case number, requesting more info such as passport details, letter of authority (i claim for the rest of the family), proof of kinship etc (one of our girls under 18 at the time).

Then silent, no acknowledgement. then last week, they sent me the discharge form and a link to provide banking details. The money came today 600Euro per pax as expected.

 

[SCM]

Thanks for that info Longtoo!

 

[Growing Older]

A fresh data-point for everyone out there who has EU/UK 261 plans for QR...

My Avios QR flights from FCO-xDOH-xMEL-CBR were cancelled yesterday, as QR announced that it was dropping Rome as a destination until the end of April. My flight is on 15th April, so I now have plenty of time to contact them, claim EU 261 re-routing rights, get myself onto a Tier 1 partner (thinking CX, then perhaps BA after that), and resolve this whole mess early before I even get to Europe (not on QR or any ME3 btw).

That was the fantasy, then reality bit!

I called a US QR number around 10:30pm AEST, waited for an hour, gave up, called an alternate US number and got through. Told the chap my predicament and that I wanted to claim EU 261 re-routing rights, using CX to get home. He checked flights and couldn't see anything. I told him exactly which CX flights to use and yes, now they seemed available.

Then he asked me how much I paid for my fares... errr, Avios + charges. Then I'm on hold for a few minutes. OK - maybe that could be done. How many Avios do you have in your account, Sir? Errr... almost none, because these award flights absorbed them. Another few minutes placed on hold. Then the kicker - they could only offer me those CX flights (FCO-xHKG-SYD) if I would pay a change fee of $350 per person (presumably USD).

Again I doth protest that EU 261 requires QR to re-route me to my original destination upon their cancellation. I will not pay for an involuntary re-routing. Then he says it is because I am now proposing going to SYD, not CBR, so I am the one requesting a change. Again, I note that it is within my rights under EU 261 to re-route to airports in the same area if this is mutually agreeable. Fly me to CBR or SYD... not a lot of difference from their perspective - and since CX has no fifth freedom rights in AU, they can't get me there anyway, so QR would have to pay VA or QF to finish the job domestically. Computer firmly says NO - unless I budge on the change fees, he can't unlock those CX flights. I ask for a Privilege Club supervisor; he can't give me one for a few hours. It's now midnight AEST and I refuse a call-back - I need my beauty sleep as I am Growing Older!

Woke up this morning and kicked myself for asking for SYD - should've just played along with the CBR masquerade, got into SYD, felt "ill" and unable to make that final domestic leg after I exit Customs with all my luggage and head home. But I digress...

This afternoon, I spent hours hanging on QR contact lines - calling both Japan and Australia to no avail. Waited until 4pm, then called Germany. Got through in 6 minutes, diverted from Wroclaw for some reason! My new QR agent was very helpful and not cagey. I asked for EU 261 re-routing and he said that QR policy has changed overnight - they will not re-route using other airlines if they can avoid it. QR departures from FCO were also reinstated overnight but CBR remains axed. Given these changes in policy, could I just travel FCO-xDOH-SYD instead? Yes Sir! Will it remain in J class? Yes Sir; we couldn't possibly downgrade you! Are there any change fees? Oh, no Sir!

Sorry for the long diatribe - but a lot has changed with QR in the past 24 hours. Rome is no longer cancelled as a QR destination but QR policy is specifically aimed at re-directing pax back onto their own flights rather than with other airlines. From the prices that I saw on Google flights for J seats with Tier 1 partners (AY, BA, CX, TK, etc), re-routing via other airlines must be costing them an absolute fortune. Whether this new policy is kosher under EU 261 is another matter, of course!

Back to the title of this thread, I think that I've had both successes and failures with my EU 261 protestations in the past 24 hours.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Good outcome!

Just picking up on the re-routing… the actual text simply says ‘to final destination’:

(b) re-routing, under comparable transport conditions, to their final destination at the earliest opportunity; or​

(c) re-routing, under comparable transport conditions, to their final destination at a later date at the passenger's convenience, subject to availability of seats.​

Is there case law that supports change of destination?