Originally Posted by
Often1
1. EC 261/2004 compensation is payable by the operating carrier and the operating carrier only. It does not matter which carrier ticketed the passenger. Thus, on this KL-operated flight, any claim is properly made to KL.
2. According to OP, the flight arrived 3:55 late. For a Type 3 flight, a delay of that length may entitle OP to compensation of EUR 300. (EUR 600 reduced by 50%). One is always free to accept alternative compensation.
Claims agencies do not accept matters they do not believe that they can win because they do not get paid if they lose. Thus, they have an incentive to get it right. Here, it appears that they did. The delay of roughly 2 hours was not extraordinary but also did not result in an arrival delay of greater than 3 hours. The de-icing delay is certainly a weather-related and extraordinary matter. The fact that it would not have occurred but for the earlier delay may be true, but does nothing for a claim under the Regulation. Prevailing over a KL rejection will mean fighting a long battle (which KL may well want to pursue because it does not want to give up the precedent of such delays).
I suspect that someone at KL hit the "send" key too fast. While it appears unfair to OP, the fact is that the payment to the friend was likely an error with which KL is stuck.
OP may certainly try other claims agencies or could, of course, pursue his own claim without an agency, but the underlying factual problem here is likely to mean that this all fails sooner or later.
I agree that it is unexpected that AF paid the compensation and the OP was lucky with this.
It seems that the aircraft left the gate less than 2h late, because they had to unload some cargo ( maybe some non-boarding pax with checked bags). There is never a mention of a malfunctioning cargo door as claimed by
FlyerCO. Then the plane had to de-ice. The fact that the plane could takeoff 2h41 late would even suggest that it left the gate well before 2h (time to taxi to the de-icing machines, wait in line, de-ice, taxi to take-off). Maybe, the aircraft was ordered to wait at the gate for de-icing rather at the de-cing station.
Suggesting that de-icing is treated as "normal" at airports like AMS or CDG, where it is such a rare event, is not a point that airlines (or Dutch courts) would accept.. Speculating as to whether the aircraft would have not needed de-icing if it left the gate an hour earlier is pointless and pure speculation from a legal standpoint. We have read many reports on FT where the de-icing time was substracted from the delay by airlines which refused compensation.
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Often1, I think that one agent was probably too quick to authorize compensation without checking the details. In any case, I doubt that there is any avenue for getting the second 300 compensation.