stimpy

It can not only happen to any of us, it can happen when flying on ANY airline. All airlines make such mistakes and all airlines have a knee jerk reaction to deny liability or culpability. All airlines spend millions on legal defense and all airlines lean towards fighting rather than give in and pay out to passengers.

pepsi38

I often saw their ads and wondered how luxurious it must be to fly with them. After reading this, I will never fly with them. Perhaps if enough readers express the same sentiments, they will experience some drop off in customers. The marketplace is a powerful thing. This should be broadcast far and wide.

Often1

There really is no news here. OP's wife appeared on time with a valid ticket and travel documents and was denied boarding. Under EC 261/2004 she is entitled to compensation under the regulation. It is that simple and hardly surprising that neither OP's wife nor the carrier's legal team could locate published appellate cases which reported visa documentation cases.

As to why try the case. That is answered in the OP itself. It was a hassle for OP and the vast majority of consumers will just drop off and go away. While this one case may have cost more than the compensation, overall, by not settling, the carrier wins.

pogonation

Agree with this that they probably spend less on compensating the few who actually take them to court rather than settling a lot of disagreements out of court. However what can't be calculated as easily here is loss of loyal customers. And word of mouth is underrated by many large companies.. They may just think they are losing a single customer but that person talking unfavourably may result in losing a few more customers and in some cases even a boss who has control over a corporate contract.

MaldivesFreak

Usually believed in blind faith by your so-called winner. In the long term they will, as pogonation says, most definitely lose out on income, especially when thousands upon thousands of people like us read this thread and spread the word.

As for this particular flyer, because of how they treated the OP and co, I am never ever going to spend a cent with them and tell every single person I know that they are a bunch of.....shall we say, stuck up royals?

lainys

Thank you for sharing your story. I've also seen their ads and wondered about the "luxury" factor. Count me in as another potential customer who will choose another airline.

warakorn

I do not want to go into politics here.
But if you are in favor of Brexit, this opportunity to retrieve compensation will go away.

ft101

Unlikely. There will be a similar percentage leaving almost any other airline you care to mention, for whatever reason, and saying they will never fly with them again. Some of these will migrate to Etihad whilst others go in the opposite direction.

Most passengers will not even be aware of this and will go with the cheapest no matter what.

Whether you are in favour of Brexit or not is immaterial. If EC261 no longer applies, it will be the same for supporters and opponents of Brexit.

pogonation

That is a massive assumption. Switzerland for example is covered by EC261 and they aren't in the EU. UK will possibly choose to be covered under the EC261 and if that's not possible then they may adopt a very similar regulation themselves.

pogonation

Remember though that in general these are the kind of pax who don't contribute much to profits.

Often1

EY knows that for every passenger who swears that they will never purchase another EY ticket, somewhere there is a passenger who has been done over by BA / QF / CX or whatever, swearing the same thing.

It all evens out.

Redhat72

Etihad flies around 15 million passengers. Nothing against this forum, but even if 10,000 readers decide not to fly Etihad, that is not even 0.1 % of the business.

Unless such incidents repeat & become a headline, I do not see any major dent to their business.

I do not want to take away the limelight from OP, who probably spent ton of effort fighting a giant, but I'm pretty sure that people who might avoid flying Etihad after this episode, might rethink if Etihad is the only better option they are getting on a particular route.

cbn42

BA / QF / CX all have shareholders to answer to, and are therefore more likely to settle cases that they are unlikely to win, especially in foreign countries. EY is owned by a monarch who is probably used to getting what he wants, and therefore is more likely to fight such cases to the bitter end, solely on principle.

Of course all the airlines have their issues, and often provide terrible service, but I have a feeling that if it had been BA, they would have settled out of court far earlier.

irishguy28

Whether or not a case has made it all the way through the courts against an airline regarding denied boarding due a mistake on the part of the airline's interpretation of the required travel documents is not really the point. But there must be hundreds, if not thousands, of such claims brought against a range of airlines, most of whom would almost undoubtedly have paid up immediately upon realising their mistake. If the airline has erred in their interpretation, then there is no reason for them to fight it - and any reasonable airline would settle long before it got to court.

You said that this ruling had "broadened" the scope of protection of the regulation, but this is clearly incorrect.

In fact, for an airline to incorrectly deny boarding on this basis would be one of the easiest cases to prove - the only noteworthy point about the case is Etihad's pig headedness in not realising they had an unwinnable case. I doubt there are many other airlines that would not have immediately offered compensation when realising their interpretation was wrong, but whether or not some other successful case was taken in some county or small claims court anywhere in Europe in the past 12 years doesn't matter. This is clearly a case where EC261/2004 requires the airline to pay up.

Here's a little excerpt from a press release regarding a CJEU ruling from 2012

When the passenger presents themselves in time, with the correct and valid travel documents, and the passenger is denied as a result of an arbitrary decision of the airline - then it is denied boarding. It was never in doubt that incorrect application of immigration law would "save" an airline in this situation.

irishguy28

Precisely!

It's so obviously and self-evidently a case where the airline is at fault under EC261/2004 that such cases should never get to court.