Originally Posted by
jochen_vdk
My flight was cancelled, not delayed.
I read
Article 5 Cancellation
1. In case of cancellation of a flight, the passengers concerned shall:
(c) have the right to compensation by the operating air carrier in accordance with Article 7, unless:
(iii) they are informed of the cancellation less than seven days before the scheduled time of departure and are offered re-routing, allowing them to depart no more than one hour before the scheduled time of departure
and to reach their final destination less than two hours after the scheduled time of arrival.
Article 7 Right to compensation
1. Where reference is made to this Article, passengers shall receive compensation amounting to:
(c) EUR 600 for all flights not falling under (a) or (b).
2. When passengers are offered re-routing to their final destination on an alternative flight pursuant to Article 8, the arrival time of which does not exceed the scheduled arrival time of the flight originally booked
c) by four hours, in respect of all flights not falling under (a) or (b),
the operating air carrier may reduce the compensation provided for in paragraph 1 by 50 %.
So for me the question is, 600 EUR or 50% of 600 EUR.
They can not pay for the new BRU-ZYR ticket, the only thing they can do is reimburse the ticket I have bought myself through customer care. In DXB, the only two options I got for rebooking were DXB AMS or DXB BRU on EK.
I am talking about 4 hours and 22 minutes.
Sorry, but you misread article 5. What it says is that you get the compensation
set up by article 7 unless you have been informed more than two weeks ahead of the flight or you have been informed at least 7 days ahead of time AND the proposed rerouting disrupts your trip by less than 2 hours.
In this case, assuming that you were not informed of the cancellation ahead of time, what happens is that article 7 kicks in and cancellation is treated just as a long delay. It means that as
irishguy28 mentions, given the length of the journey, you would only be eligible for compensation if your delay was over 4 hours and the cancellation is not due to exceptional circumstances.
In this particular case, while train journeys are not normally considered by the regulation, in this case you are indeed in an odd situation because your itinerary was to ZYR. I think that a judge would consider that the criterion would be the difference between your original and actual arrival time at destination.
Either way, though, your calculations A and C, are simply mistaken. If looking at case A, you simply would not compare arrival into BRU to arrival into AMS! You mention that you were also offered a rerouting to AMS and it is unclear from your post when it would have arrived. Clearly, however, you refused that rerouting in favour of the BRU one.
When it comes to the calculation of C, if indeed your destination remained ZYR, did you ask KL to ensure that you would be taken to that particular destination rather than BRU? You would have been entitled to then arranging your transport to the Midi station and then could have compared arrival time. Failing that, if you just made your own way, I'm afraid that no judge would take that as a sensible measure of your actual arrival time as they would have no way of knowing how quickly and efficiently you made your own way to Bruxelles Midi. I know it is frustrating but it would have been better to let KL take care of that land journey and then you would have been able to hold it against them.
All in all, my sense is that regardless of the causes of the cancellation, you are almost certainly not entitled to EC261 compensation for your delayed arrival. You were clearly inconvenienced but I would recommend that you instead write to KL asking for a gesture of good will which they would have a chance to approve. In my view, asking for EC261 compensation will not only be rejected but lead to them taking a hard line on your case.