lizban

Reading on here people have many problems with the airport operators (missing flights due to conformance, rudeness, air bridges not working etc etc etc)

Seeing as this 'service' is paid for has anyone here tried to get a refund if the service falls short?

Furthermore has anyone here pursued a SCC Claim?

Elsewhere in life if we pay for something and don't get it it's perfectly reasonable to request a refund.


(I've edited the thread title to reflect more accurately who the potential claim would be against)

Swiss Tony

For the most part, I'd say any of those claims would amount to abuse of the small claims court service.

Someone being rude means you want a refund? Really?

You go into a department store, buy something on the 5th floor and find the lift has broken so you have to walk back down the stairs. Do you then expect a refund for whatever % of the sale accounts for store infrastructure, or do you move on and just not shop there any more?

Admittedly if you got stuck in a lift (because it broke down), missed your flight and had to buy a new ticket then you would have cause for a claim, but my understanding in these instances was the airlines were always accommodative.

Globaliser

You very rarely "don't get it" at an airport. You get what you're promised, but simply provided badly - and that isn't often a cause for suing the provider. Elsewhere in life, the usual remedy is to take your business elsewhere. If you don't like what the airport does, I recommend that option.

corporate-wage-slave

The problem is that we - as passengers - don't have a direct contractural relationship with Heathrow Airport Limited (HAL), it is with BA. The Small Claims track is designed very much for "I am owed �100 from Joe Bloggs because he hasn't fulfilled his side of the contract". In this case the consideration - such as it is - is with the airline, not the airport. So if any of us tried to pursue HAL via the Small Claims track, firstly it wouldn't get very far, and secondly there is a rarely invoked power for the court to impose legal costs on cases which are obviously hopeless. I should point out that though I've successfully sued KLM and Easyjet via Small Claims, I am not a lawyer.

Small Claims is a very powerful tool for private individuals up against a big companies. Big companies find the process very irritating since as soon as they start to place matters with external lawyers the taxi meter starts immediately at around �200, and very quickly ends up over �1,000 and counting. There is no effective way to recover that, the best they can do is settle quickly. So BA is not in the habit of contesting EU261 claims of a few hundred pounds, it's just not worth their while. Jet2, which is actually quite a small company, seems to contest on the "sliding slope" principle, they don't want to be seen as a soft touch.

On the other hand, if the case is contested, it gets presented to a District Judge. If s/he feels the complainant is abusing the process - by pursuing a hopeless or silly case - I suspect a verbal if not financial backlash may ensue. However it would be reasonable to pursue BA for services not received, even if the operator was HAL, not BA.

Also, there seems a natural tendency to think about legal remedies involving courts: there are other approaches that often get overlooked: Passenger Consultation Groups, local authorities, MPs, MEPs, CAA (admittedly they're hopeless), turning up at AGMs with one share and asking awkward questions, lobbying other shareholders, the government departments relating to Transport and Business. All of which can hold people to account for their actions.

Magic01273

Those are - for the most part - fairly long-winded ways of seeking redress for specific issues and as such, I am really not surprised that the small claims track is used above these approaches.

I agree though that small claims proceedings probably aren't going to be that effective in targeting HAL.

UKtravelbear

as C-W-S said you don't have a direct contract with the airport operator.

Even if it got to court they would say 'we are following airline contractual requirements' e.g. conformance is a BA imposed thing etc and we would be penalised if we failed to follow those.

On the old BAA site they used to give the monthly performance figures for each terminal and if they reached the targets and if not what fines they had to pay the airlines. Not sure if HAL still publish that. It included things like availability of air bridges and customer feedback on availability of seats in the terminal and toilets etc

lizban

Rudeness was a bad example on my part. I was simply replaying some of the examples I could recall.

It's difficult to think of another area that if you pay for something and don't get it that you don't ask for your money back.

Contractually it may well be you pursue the airline rather than the operator.

In terms of this being seen as vexatious claim I don't see that as being remotely likely

Globaliser

But you're ignoring the obvious: you do get it.On a technical level, given that you have no contratual relationship with the airport (as others have pointed out), what is your legal "cause of action"? Without one, your claim is legally doomed -and therefore vexatious (even if you leave aside the dubious merits). Can you think of any other situation in which A pays B for something, which is supposed to be provided by C but isn't, and in which A can directly sue C?

IAN-UK

Hmmm. but i think our relationship with the airport is quite different to the one we enjoy with John Lewis. We pay, albeit through the airline, a significant and specific fee (�38, I think is Heathrow's price) for using the airport in its primary role as an interface between transport modes.

However, I have no idea if BA is to be regarded as passing on the fee on my behalf, or if the airline fronts up and requires me to compensate its expense - or indeed if this makes any difference at all to my contractual position with regard to airport services So I'll shut up.

IAN-UK

I believe failure to meet performance measures can result in a direct repayment of a proportion of fees paid to the airlines.

Tobias-UK

Yes. I [A] was driving to the airport when a car came through a red light and crashed in to the side of me. I had to wait for the recovery vehicle to arrive. I arrived at the airport too late to make my business class flight. The airline [B] refused to rebook me as I was a no show and I was forced to buy a new ticket for the next day.

I claimed the cost of a new business class ticket to HKG, my overnight accommodation and the additional travel costs from the driver [C] of the vehicle that crashed in to me.

lizban

(my subsequent post corrected who you may have to pursue I mistakenly thought that the airlines passed through the cost thus confirming a relationship with HAL)

I pay BA to fly. Part of that process is I pay to use an airport and clear security etc. BA pays HAL to provide that service. HAL fails to provide that service.

I haven't received what I've paid for - why would a claim be vexatious (it may well fail but that's a different matter).





Recently my car rear windscreen developed a fault - I took it to VW to get it fixed and paid VW to do that. VW got 'Mr Window' to fix my window. 2 weeks later my window fault re-emerged. I went back to VW who have now fixed it. Had they not I would have asked for my money back. That is very similar to the BA/HAL arrangement

Swiss Tony

I don't think it's an accurate analogy.

You are paying to be processed through the airport. That is happening. You are not paying explicitly for an airbridge, courteous service, clean toilets etc.

You are paying for access to a plane, a level of service, the presence of toilets. You are getting all these.

Part of your contract is to be in the right place at the right time. If the line for security is so long that you miss conformance then that is an issue, but you're talking about the whole, not specifics.

In the case of your windscreen, you paid for a product and it wasn't up to scratch. There's a whole raft of consumer legislation that kicks in here - (and I'd wager that Mr Window took the bulk of the hit here, not the VW garage).

NickB

But you sought redress from VW not from "Mr Window" whereas what you suggest in your title is an action against "Mr Window" ("v Airport operator").

Your analogy would imply an action against BA. You would have to identify which part of the contract BA is in breach of, bearing in mind that both the BA TandCs and Montreal Convention exempt the carrier from liability for damages entirely caused by third parties. I would have thought that an airbridge not functioning would be something of that kind.
Quaere whether the airport could not be liable in tort, however.

UKtravelbear

That's what I said !