fastair

If the US govt wanted their citizens to do such as a civic duty, they might want to adapt the laws of the foreign government that passed them. I truly doubt the US govt believes it is your civic duty to enforce a regulation that they have not endorsed.

Talk about going overboard!

milski

Because if United wants to fly to EU countries they have to comply with the laws of these countries. What is so strange about that? And how is complying with the laws going overboard?

Passmethesickbag

Eh, for the record, we don't view our own governments as "foreign". We live here, and UA has chosen to operate here.

fastair

The going overboard is calling it your civic duty. I have no problem with following the rules, even rules that apply that are issued by a foreign country that may pertain, but to call it a civic duty, and that "the President have stated that they want the citizen to do" is what is going overboard. The EU is a praliment, and they do have a president, but how many people can honestly say that they have seen Jerzy Buzek tell them it is their duty to collect this money?

My point in going overbaord isn't with the actual issue here, it is with the post that I quoted when I made the statement. That is the reason that I quoted that post when stating "going overboard".

/understand what you are saying, as your profile makes me believe you are a Brit (so if you embrace the EU, why not adopt the same currency that all the others except the Danish have?) but most of the posters on the UA/CO forum are not citizens of an EU state, so I wrote a) to the masses, and b) to the poster I quoted, who I believe is not a citizen of an EU state, but rather of the US, and his reference to the President, was vague as to whose president.

I believe that UA has chosen to operate there before there was such a cartel as the EU, but they flew into individual states. Yes, UA has chosen to continue to operate there after the formation of the EU, but it isn't like UA started flying into those countries as they became EU states, rather UA flew to Europe long before, and continues to after. How many NEW coutries in the EU has UA added since the formation compared to countries they flew to before. This point is moot, but I am just pointing out that in most cases, UA didn't choose to fly to the EU, they choose to fly to individual countries that then joined the EU after. A subtle and legally moot point, but a valid perspective shift none the less.

Tarpie

CollegeFlyer was specifically talking about the US (although this thread is about an EU law).

Of course the same sentiment applies to enforcing EC 261/2004 for the many European passengers flying from Europe to the US on United. Squeeze every penny of the fine out of UA and they may do more to avoid getting fined in the future.

Passmethesickbag

Are you sure? I don't see any transatlantic red lines on this UA route map from 1974:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...m=190539698674

fastair

And I didn't see the Maastricht Treaty signed until 1 Nov. 1993. Might want to check to see when the current "EU' was formed. UA flew transantlantic prior to Nov 1993, which is the time the Eu was formally established.

Perhaps you are thinking of 1973, when the UK joined the "European Communities"? (note the EC is not the EU. The EU is a parliment that officialy started 1 Nov 93, and was signed previous to that, but not active, in 1992.) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maastricht_Treaty

Bulldog83

The accuracy of this statement aside, the regulation itself only dates from 2004 (and went into effect in 2005).

That being said, it is not unheard of for a company to withdraw its business interests from a country after the passage of new laws. For example, some oil companies weren't too fond of Chavez' new laws in Venezuela...

http://www.abcmoney.co.uk/news/28200794417.htm

gnaget

I am all for free markets but the airline industry is still highly regulated and oligopolistic, especially in international operations.

The way UA bungled things in my case was pathetic and a EUR 600 compensation was poor compensation. For example, they had a dozen LH staff sitting at the premium check-in counters doing nothing. They had one UA staff member handling a line of 100+ people. So I had to go through passport control to get to the RCC. By the time I got there they were helping a guy ahead of me who received the last seat on FRA-ORD.

Passmethesickbag

This is about EU trivia, is it? In that case, I was too polite to point out that you're wrong about the €, which has not been adopted not only by the UK and Denmark, but also Sweden (following a referendum), Lithuania, Latvia, the Czech Republic, Romania, and Bulgaria.

If you're looking for the rules being changed and countries and airlines having to adjust, look no further than the US forcing us to throw our principles of data protection and privacy to the wind by providing your government with 19 pieces of personal data about every passenger.

We follow your laws, even to the point of changing our own so that the Department of Homeland Security can have our credit card information for seven years. We have our own laws, and by doing business in Europe, UA/CO are obliged to follow them. Deal with it.

fastair

Again, like I pointed out earlier, and you choose to ignore, I have nothing wrong with following applicable laws. Again, reread my posts. My post said that the person calling it a "civic duty to get paid" was overboard on that statement. Please, read what I wrote before telling me I ignored your posts. I have read them, but ask you to do the same thing.

I have said NOTHING that even implies that I don't "deal with it". What makes you think I said I wouldn't? Any post from me saying that?

My post re:dates of the EU was on topic, re:you stated UA didn't fly any transatlantic routes in some crazy date, like 1973, which I have shown was long before the EU, and that UA did fly to Europe from numerous cities before the EU was formed. SO my quesioning your facts was on topic. What purpose does questioning the use of the Euro in a few countries (like Romania, which wants to switch, but has to meet certain EU economic standards, like low inflation, first, before the EU will ALLOW them) have to do with the topic on hand, other than to muddy the waters re: the on topic facts that you got wrong? An off topic discussion about currency in the EU, while interesting, has little to do with the topic. I only brought it up in passing

EsquireFlyer

Really, where did I say that?

My post was about US law (see the first sentence, as well as the specific examples of US law). My point was (in response to the message i quoted) that the US has statutes similar to this in which individual citizens are compensated, and that it's not just an EU thing.

So, I was obviously saying that, in the case of these US statutes, a US citizen should feel entitled to collect on them, and that it "may" even be his/her civic duty because that is what his/her government would like its citizens to do when it designs a penalty to be enforced by individual citizens.

Of course, the same logic applies to an EU citizen, like the OP, enforcing an EU consumer protection statute.

But where in any of that do you get me saying that the US government wants its citizens to enforce EU law, and based on that say that I went "overboard?"

As you're telling other people to read your posts carefully before responding, could you please extend me the same courtesy?

Actually, you don't know my citizenship. But I made general points about EU law and US law, and I did not put my own citizenship at issue; I request that you not make this more personal than it needs to be.

This is a red herring. As a general rule, legislatures pass laws that they want to see obeyed and enforced. (Do you disagree?) Accordingly, citizens should follow and/or enforce the law as appropriate--a personal message from the legislature to every citizen is not required to make the law binding, and everyone should know that the government wants its laws to be enforced, without the President individually telling you so.

I agree that this point is legally moot, but I don't think it's a meaningful perspective shift. I think it's entirely irrelevant.

By flying to the EU, UA and other carriers must accept that they will be subject to EU laws and regulations, which everyone knows may change over time. And it's not like UA is permanently locked into every route it opens--UA has dropped lots of of routes in its history. So, unless you believe that UA should eternally be subject only to the laws in place in the various EU states when it first started serving them (and based on reading your posts, I don't think that's what you believe), then I don't see how this point, or any of the ensuing discussion of route maps, and treaty history/trivia, is relevant at all. As long as UA serves EU destinations, UA is subject to EU law, period. And if this was a very recent law that the EU sprang on UA without notice, then maybe you could say it was unfair to expect UA to immediately be ready to comply. But this is a law from 2004, so for UA not to be following it in in 2011 is simply indefensible. Whether UA started serving LHR in 2002, or in 1902, makes no difference whatsoever.

fastair

I quoted you in post 46, where your sentance says "So, not only do I think anyone who is legally entitled to collect damages under a consumer-protection statute should feel entitled to those damages, but I actually think that it may well be the citizen's civic duty to collect those damages, because that is what the legislature and the President have stated that they want the citizen to do, in order to help the government punish behavior that the government has declared to be wrongful."

You said "anyone who is legally entitled..." That would include US citizens as well as just about everyone. Can you see where when you used an all encompassing term like "anyone who is legally entitled" that I would assume you included non EU citizens, as they too, are legally entitled. If you wanted to limit the scope of your statment, and I misinterpreted it, try using limiting terms instead of all encompassing terms. In the venn diagram, "anyone..." is the set, you defind, not a subset such as "anyones who happen to be subject of the government that passed the rule."

If I misread your post, perhaps the terms you used were not the terms you wanted to use, as I did read the entire post, and that is where I pulled your quote from, using the all encompassing term. Any reference previous to a subset was redefined as soon as you changed the subject to include "anyone" in that sentance.

serfty

Note the EC 261/2004 was created for several reasons. Most of these are listed in the Preamble to the regulation. (http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/...01:0007:EN:PDF)

It is a waste of time, since it is a moot point, to dispute these reasons:

serfty

In the OP's case, it appears that US was in breach of regulation EC 261/2004 from the very start by not informing PAX of their rights under EC 261/2004.Here's a poster: http://ec.europa.eu/transport/passen..._apr_a4_en.pdf

And a Leaflet: http://ec.europa.eu/transport/passen...leaflet_en.pdf