New EU Ruling On Connections Means You Could Be Due Additional Flight Delay Compensation

You might want to start looking through your old airline tickets. A new ruling from the EU261 says that if you had a connecting flight that was delayed and ultimately delayed your final destination, then you could be owed some compensation. Up to €600.

The Court of Appeals has reached a binding judgement on how to handle delayed, cancelled or downgraded flights compensation. Barring a final appeal from Emirates airline, the judgement looks to have resolved issues around the EU261 / EC261 rules.

The summary is pretty confusing, but it looks like the basics include getting up to €600 if you miss a flight due to a delayed connection. The flights involved must be coming from the EU and connecting at an airport outside of the EU. The common scenarios include flights on Emirates, Etihad or Qatar Airways with plane changes in Dubai, Abu Dhabi or Doha.

The cases that the court ruled upon were actually two separate cases involving many different people but the court chose to hear them as one case. In the first case a woman missed her connecting flight to Bangkok as a result of her connecting flight being delayed. She wasn’t offered full compensation despite the missed connection resulting in being over 13 hours late to her ultimate destination and her connecting flight being over four hours late. In the other case, no compensation was offered for a two-hour flight delay of the connecting flight, which ultimately resulted in being over 16 hours late to the final destination.

The Court ruled that Emirates was in the wrong in both cases. Emirates has the right to make a final appeal. The ruling means that you can file a claim for compensation for up to six years ago, so if you experienced a delay during that time, you can file a claim even if a previous claim was denied.

H/T: Head for Points

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