Originally Posted by
OttoMH
The NL gov department is useless, they don't investigate or enforce individual complaints. You can file a complaint after 60 days and they give you a reference number and sent it to the airline. That's it. You have to go to court - luckily Dutch liability insurance usually covers legal action. I've had a claim "in processing" for over 70 days now!
The oversight bodies are not meant to enforce individual complaints, they are meant to monitor airline compliance. If they decide the airline is not compliant, they can issue large fines. Most airlines I've dealt with became a lot more cooperative once oversight authorities came into picture.
Particularly in this case, where two different pax on the same itinerary have received two different answers to the same question - the issue for the oversight is not whether a given flight is subject to compensation or not (that would be a question for the court system), but that the airline is clearly failing in its duty to inform the passengers.