tnurminen

Hi

Court of Appeals in Helsinki ruled in my favour and ordered Finnair to pay the compensation for delayed flight plus nearly all my legal fees. The judgement was well drafted and it was based in correct interpretation of the European Court of Justice case law. It is also good to note that Chief Judge of the proceedings was no other than the President of the Helsinki Appeals Court, most experienced and senior judge of the whole court. He has also previously served in the Finnish Supreme Court.

It will be a privilege if the case goes to the Finnish Supreme Court. Finnair has lost all its cases related to passenger rights in court of appeals and supreme court. Appeals court decision left very little room for Finnair to argue its case anymore. And furthermore if it goes to the supreme court, I can request the court to pursue preliminary ruling from the European Court of Justice which I will do. ECJ is no friend of airlines when it comes to passenger rights and Finnair has already been in ECJ two previous occasions of which one was denied boarding case and other one unlawful termination of job contract, losing both cases single handedly.

I will do whatever it takes to beat Finnair which has blatantly refused to respect the law, pay compensation for those it should be paid and above all, because they use tax payers money to fight their own customers in the courts.

temppa

Dear tnurminen,

Welcome to FT! Please keep us updated how/if the case proceeds to supreme court.

It would be great to read the summary (or even the whole ruling) of court of appeals, would you mind posting it here on FT?

Did Finnair have any good arguments on their favor, or was your case really clear from the beginning?

OH-LGG

Hello, how they use tax payers money and where that comes?

temppa

I think the common analogy with Finnair (or any government partially owned public company) is that if the following "if" rules are true, there might be some income for tax payers:

If the court costs would not realize,
If Company is profitable,
If there are non-restricted equity capital,
If the board proposes dividends,
If AGM approves the dividends proposal,
pay out!

Not likely in Finnair case...

tnurminen

Finnair argued that there was a hidden manufacturing defect. ECJ has ruled that hidden manufacturing defect is considered extraordinary circumstance if there is official notification from aviation authorities or the manufacturer. FAA, EASA and Finnish Aviation Authority Trafi all testified, that there has been no hidden manufacturing defect. Also Honeywell which manufactured the cabin pressure valve which caused the delay confirmed there has been not a single case of hidden manufacturing defect.

Basically Finnair´s claim was rejected by 3 leading aviation authorities as well as the manufacturer as being completely false and unsubstantiated. As the court stated in the ruling bluntly, Finnair has failed to prove that delay was caused by extraordinary circumstances. Court also considered this to be within normal operations of Finnair because Finnair had A) spare part in inventory B) had mechanics who easily fixed the problem in two hours C) had clear written procedures how to act if this exact technical fault happened. Its impossible to Finnair argue that this was an "act of god" type event, when they had prepared for this specific fault with spare parts, personnel and procedures. Only reason why Finnair is fighting this case is because I was first one in Finland to take this to court and they thought it would make a perfect precedent. What they failed to count on is that I am a pilot, I know aviation regulations, I know about technical defects and I have lot of friends who have worked for Finnair in the past who were happy to provide anonymously advice.

WilcoRoger

Welcome Nurminen to FT, don't be a stranger!

Good to see that someone have the tenacity to see such cases through - lack of a small claims court in FIN makes getting what's due from AY very difficult. Such cases might change that.

FFlash

OMG so great to read this, welcome to FT Nurminen!

mikew99

Welcome to FlyerTalk!

As a frequent flyer, I owe you a great deal of gratitude for seeing this through. Your perseverence in this case helps all flyers in their efforts to force the airlines to compensate flyers according to the law! ^

remymartin

+1 on all accounts!

ffay005

Welcome to FT, Tnurminen, and THANK YOU for everything you have done. I believe I'm not the only one when I say that I'm really grateful – you've done a terrific job for all of us.

The downside is of course that AY is probably going to continue claiming that all mechanicals are extraordinary, and different from your case so the ruling wouldn't apply, and they will still count on people not taking them to court. We'll see.

Some years ago, I had a flight to Nuremberg, which AY cancelled when one of their Embrarers went mechanical. It was not the plane that was supposed to fly to NUE, but loads on NUE were light and they seemed to frequently cancel that flight when something unexpected occured. AY blaimed technical + extraordinary, and I took it to the Consumer Disputes Board, which first suggested I drop the case completely and then ultimately ruled in my favour, stating that the reason for the cancellation was as a matter of fact commercial, not technical. No need to say that AY never paid the €250 as per EU-regulations. They paid €100, though, and for some reason it bugs me to this day that relented and took their €100.

intuition

This is the weakness of EU regulations that are dictated centrally but enforced locally. Because it means they are either not enforced at all or enforced arbitrarily.


If not all airlines are forced to follow the same rules, then AY would be completely stupid if it voluntarily paid. Don't get me wrong, I despise them for not doing the right thing. But if some airlines get away with it, those doing the right thing will go under. Simple as that.

intuition

BTW AY once claimed a hydraulic oil leak was extraordinary (I've never heard of anyone working with hydraulics not expecting it to leak at some point) but was willing to give me 200€ in vouchers as a goodwill gesture. I resisted the temptation and declined. Maybe now is a good time to activate that claim.

Nestor

I'd like to add my gratitude to the choir as well. I have an unsettled claim against Finnair as well, which I plan to activate eventually. I have demanded interest on the claim already, so there is no great hurry. I'd prefer not to put in the kind of time and effort tnurminen invested, though

But it still pisses me off how they just expect us to keel over. And while they can delay passengers for free, they'll never consider re-routing with other airlines even if it costs just a little bit more and gets the passenger to his destination much faster. That's the second thing that pisses me off - being delayed much longer than necessary.

WilcoRoger

When there was a risk of strike related cancellation (so just a risk of it) they rebooked me to BA with just a phone call to NRT.

Lappe

I have been re-routed on BA and even on Lufthansa - and given options to choose from. Though I do agree that their compensation policy is terrible, as they always refuse and expect the customer not to go to court.