Originally Posted by
farnorthtrader
Careful in applying EU rulings to Swiss flights. Swiss Airlines has taken the position that the Swiss interpretation of EU261 overrides the EU court interpretation of the same law if the flight departs from Switzerland.
This Swiss interpretation of EU261 is identical to any other member country of the EU as Switzerland adopted EU261 as a matter of law. Indeed, the Federal Office of Civil Aviation has a
whole website dedicated to EU261, quoting from that site:
Regulation (EC) No 261/2004 sets out the rights of passengers throughout all the Member States of the European Union. It also applies to Switzerland, Norway, and Iceland, which have adopted the Regulation. Any mention of the EU in this connection should therefore be understood as including Switzerland, Norway and Iceland.
Passenger rights apply to any flight that
- originates at an EU airport,
- originates in a “third country” (non-EU) and has its destination in the EU, and is operated by an EU airline.
Important: if your flight originates outside the EU and is operated by a non-EU airline, Regulation (EC) No 261/2004 does not apply.
FOCA is responsible for all cases where the flight originates in Switzerland, or where the flight originates in a non-EU country and its first point of landing is in Switzerland.
Originally Posted by
farnorthtrader
Also, based on everything I have ready about how Lufthansa group (especially but not uniquely) handles EU261 cases, it is far from open and shut as they seem to deny every claim and force people to go through the whole process. I haven't heard of many people's experience with EU261 that was any better than the experience with AC under APPR (especially recently). Given the way Air Canada has evolved their handling of compensation claims under APPR in the last year or so, I think trying to work that angle might be a good first step. If it isn't working, the EU261 claim can always be made afterward.
Generally a European airline is not going to mess around with stuff like EU261 given the consequences for knowingly violating the legislation. Much of the matters are open and shut cases where in most cases compensation is owed if you arrive more than 3 hours later. Unless they can somehow prove it is truly something outside of their control like weather or ATC, they aren't going to win. Mechanical issues or staffing are two items which courts across the EU have ruled as a matter of law are not extraordinary on their own and thus don't escape the carrier from liability under the law. And to the point about the original poster mentioned, Air Canada has already stated the cause of the delay is crew scheduling which again is open and shut in EU law (indeed,
courts in Europe have ruled that a pilot passing away moments before a flight is scheduled to take off is not considered extraordinary and compensation is owed). Could an airline fight it and drag their feet? Potentially. And certainly running the number it may make sense to employ that strategy. But that doesn't stop people like me from suing them not only for compensation but punitive damages and forcing them to disclosure in excruciating detail their operations (or lack there of) during discovery so that it becomes public knowledge, plus complaining to the relevant government authorities. If enough passengers raised a little hell, airlines would realize it is no longer economically viable for them to deny compensation when it is owed. Those are at least my two cents, although I have been successful with EU261 compensation with both WestJet and Qantas.
-RooFlyer88