Tafflyer

There has been a documentary on German TV about airlines dodging EU261 and Air Berlin was featured very heavily in this. They had interviews with ex-AB staff who told of training received to specifically discourage EU261 claimants. Needless to say, they are no longer quite so successful in discouraging passengers.

IMO, it's just one example of the mismanagement that has turned a potentially successful airline into a basket case. If it weren't for Etihad, they would no longer be flying. If rumours are to be believed, most of their non hub traffic (BER and DUS) will soon be sold to Lufthansa anyway, so removing the tiny bit of competition left in the German market.

Wozza2404

Glad to hear it was sorted out. MCOL is a fantastic tool for taking complaints further. I have used it a few times, and only ever ended up in court once.

EK actually called me about a week after receiving my claim for Ł600ish to say "We don't necessarily agree with your claim, but it's too small for us to deal with. Where do you want it paid?"

beardotravel

Apologies for the long post but I thought it may be useful with anyone trying to extract EC261 compensation from German based airlines.
(Accept it isn't BA related but in the spirit of this post hopefully nobody will get offended!)

I had a 3 month wrangle with Lufthansa over a delayed flight (VNO - FRA) which caused me to miss my connecting flight (FRA-MAN) on the same booking and PNR.

Overall delay to arrival at MAN was more than 5 hours but at no time was I offered anything by Lufty.

When I emailed Lufthansa they eventually after 4 exchanges offered me 200 Euros goodwill gesture but said it was not actually their responsibility.
When I declined that they went silent.

Eventually used the German body (LBA - see extract of their email to me below).
Long and short they referred it to the Lithuanian CAA and finally got an email from Lufthansa asking me for my bank details so they could pay me 400 Euros..!
So keep at it is the motto..!

Extract from LBA email:

Dear Beardotravel

Thank you very much for your request to the Federal Aviation Office
Luftfahrt-Bundesamt (LBA).

If you are effected by a cancellation, denied boarding or by a delay at
your arrival of 3 hours or more you may be entitled for a compensation.

The amounts of compensation are:
a) 250€ for all flights of 1.500km or less,
b) 400€ for all intra-Community flights of more than 1.500km and
for all other flights between 1.500km and 3.500km and
c) 600€ for all flights not falling under a and b.


Should you assume an infringement of the provisions of Regulation (EC)
No 261/2004 and think your passenger rights are injured, you have the
possibility of notifying the LBA of the infringement by means of a form
available under the following link
http://www.lba.de/SharedDocs/Downloa...cationFile&v=4


The LBA is the National Enforcement Body for Regulation (EC) No
261/2004 and examines on the basis of your notification, if the air
carrier infringed the aforementioned Regulation. If there is evidence
that the Regulation was infringed, the LBA can initiate administration
offence proceedings against the air carrier and, if appropriate, impose
it with a fine.

The administrative offence proceedings serve the purpose of applying
sanctions due to infringements of the Regulation, but not to enforce the
individual claims of the passengers such as the payment of a
compensation. This kind of enforcement is only a legal relationship
between passenger and air carrier and has to be enforced by himself. The
LBA is not involved in the proceedings.

Provided we will not receive any further information by you as to the
facts by means of the a.m. form, it may be presumed that your inquiry is
herewith settled and any further procedure on our part will not be
necessary in this context. In this case, the correspondence associated
with your inquiry will be destroyed after the expiry of 6 months
following this message.

Civil claims: Conciliation process

Passengers concerned by an incident that took place as of 1 November
2013 have the possibility of enforcing their claims under civil law
easier by means of the conciliation process.

As an alternative, passengers concerned still have the possibility of
enforcing their claims within the scope of complaint or summary
proceedings for debt, however in this case, they bear the risk of
litigation.

Principally, conciliation processes are free of charges for the
passenger unless the claim is enforced abusively. The passenger only has
to pay his own costs, e.g. postage, copies or, if any, lawyer‘s
charges.

As far as the air carrier concerned takes part in conciliation
processes of a Conciliation Body organized under private law, this
Conciliation Body must be applied to. If the air carrier concerned does
not take part in conciliation processes organized under private law, the
Official Conciliation Body with the Federal Office of Justice can be
applied to (www.bundesjustizamt.de).

All air carriers taking part voluntarily in the conciliation are
members of the söp (German Conciliation Body for Public Transport -
Schlichtungsstelle für den öffentlichen Personenverkehr), Fasanenstraße
81, D - 10623 Berlin. For further information as to the conciliation
processes, the söp members and the complaint form please see the
following website www.soep-online.de.

https://soep-online.de/request-form-flight.html

Before the Conciliation Body can start its activities, it is absolutely
necessary that the passenger enforced his claims towards the air
carriers on his own without success or that, since this enforcement,
more than two months have passed.“

For more information about the process of conciliation please mention
the following link to the homepage of the Luftfahrt-Bundesamt.
http://www.lba.de/EN/Administration/...tion_node.html

'andad

As the OP, I should add my result to that of superroddy (we have been in PM contact throughout).
I also persisted, and persisted, and persisted. AB are awful re EC261. I believe EC261 is too generous even though our party of 7 pax arrived 14 hours late due to a missed connection at TXL. Therefore I would have happily accepted a compromise payment, but as AB originally offered one €100 travel voucher to be shared between us, not even reimbursing the the taxis they told us to take and claim back, then did not reply to numerous e mails etc, they riled me !
After initiating MCL, sending threatening letters recorded delivery, after 8 months I was paid in full. AB never agreed to pay up, but suddenly the money owed was in the bank. Very stressful, but a good outcome, so long as I don't cause them to to go belly-up, watch this forum. Awful customer service, never again, although in-flight was quite good (apart from the 2 kids' quartz watches i bought losing minutes per week and lasting only 6 weeks or so).

Fitch

It wasn't worth a new thread at the time, but my AB experience earlier this year (as part of an ex-EU 125- ticket, to earn this post a place here &#128512 was also terrible.

Rude check-in staff who tried to charge me for a bag even though I had a print of their email showing I had already paid, chaotic boarding, totally uninterested CC who didn't even bother to check our seatbelts were done up, 45-minute delay post-push with no information, and finally completely wrong baggage belt information at TXL...

Definitely not worth it, even if taxes abd charges are low...

YClass

I've had the same terrible experience of trying to claim for a year now. They also wouldn't give me the earliest possible next available flight, instead insisting I wait for a later BA flight which would have meant I miss another flight that afternoon (different PNR).

I'll follow the advice here!

fransknorge

My experience with AB quite contrast this:Nice CC in general, professional and safety minded, pilots keeping us informed of the situation. I agree with the boarding, though the amount of bussing make priority boarding moot anyway.
I am aware of their bad rep for EC261 handling. Though note that LH rep is as bad.

Bluebirdnick

This thread makes me sad. I used to travel to and from Germany a lot when I was a student, and air Berlin were overwhelmingly my airline of choice. Low fares, good seat, and good customer service: it seemed to be a proper airline masquerading as a LCC. They really did a lot to help me on the not infrequent times that flights were cancelled for snow etc. The airline described in this thread just doesn't seem to be the one I used to use. What a pity that it has become so bad.

SK2751

It is still my experience that they are quite good accommodating me on the day, if there is still a chance to get to my destination. Several times they have rebooked me cross-alliance (on *A with SK) to avoid missing connections. In one case even proactively, at the departure airport, not in the connecting hub, after missing the flight.

However, I agree with the sentiment in this thread - that regarding compensation and EC261 handling they are terrible. Actually, it seems that they are unbearable in anything that require the contact outside the travel time. CC basically sucks.

Prospero

This thread originated in the BA forum and has now been moved into the airberlin forum.

Prospero
Moderator: BA forum

When I Travel The World

My flight was delayed today leaving ARN-DUS, it basically just departed late , arrived into DUS late and I ran from the plane to the gate and they had closed the door on my flight to LAX and despite me asking, they said there was nothing they could do.

So i'm now stuck in DUS for the night. I went to Air Berlin ticket desk and they rebooked me tomorrow via LHR to LAX on British airways.

Do i have the right to claim EU261/2004 ?

Any help would be great

Often1

Southsidesilver - Presuming that AB cannot point to some "extraordinary" reason for the departure delay, you are entitled to EC 261/2004 compensation of EUR 600 as well as a "duty of care" from AB. The "duty of care" would include hotel, food, and transport to & from the hotel (if AB has refused to provide vouchers for these).

As you can see, you will have a lengthy fight on your hands.

First, AB will tell you that it is only responsible for delays into DUS and that unless your arrival into DUS was delayed by more than 2 hours, that you are entitled to nothing and that if it was delayed by more than 2 hours, that you are only entitled to EUR 250 (the time and compensation limits for Type 1 flights, e.g. ARN-DUS). This is incorrect. On a single ticket connecting to LAX, which makes ARN-LAX a Type 3 flight and what amounts to a delay of more than a full day, you are entitled to EUR 600 compensation because it is the delay at the "final ticketed destination" e.g., LAX, which matters.

Second, it is for AB to prove an extraordinary circumstance.

You should start this process tomorrow when you return to DUS. No reason not to see if you can't roust up the Station Manager and make a fuss because you were not handed a copy of your EC 261/2004 rights which would have answered your question.

Bear in mind that you are entitled to your compensation in cash (or its equivalent such as a check or bank transfer). You may certainly choose to accept a voucher for future AB travel, but unless you plan on using it and the voucher is for significantly more than EUR 600 and is unrestricted, why do so? You can always use your EUR 600 in cash to purchase tickets.

As to "duty of care" keep your receipts and keep it reasonable. Don't expect AB to reimburse 5* hotels and restaurants. EC 261/2004 does not define the standard of the duty.

When I Travel The World

Thank you for the great reply Often1.

I will certainly head back early tomorrow to DUS to complain a bit more.

Do you happen to know, do I visit the ticketing desk or something like that to get a copy of the EC261/2004 rights or something like that ?

Thank you again

fransknorge

They should have pro-actively gave that to you. You could ask for it at ticketing; check-in or the gate, all of them should have a summary. You might want to read this to get up to speed with what the regs: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/briti...61-2004-a.html. It is exhaustive enough to be relevant to your case.

When I Travel The World

I asked for proof that the flight arrived late, and they gave me a stamped letter showing that my flight had irregular operations on my flight and they wrote down the time it arrived and it clearly shows this giving me an 12 minute connection time. I guess that's something to start with. I will go back and ask for the form first thing.