steveholt

Bless your heart. If you think airlines are struggling and deserve some patience amidst punitive policies and a difficult financial situation, wait until you meet a passenger.

alserire

Yeah. All those billions of losses.

And I am a passenger. And I’d like to remain one with EI. Who very nearly didn’t survive. So. Forgive me. But I’m sure you’ll survive without your €600

steveholt

Yes, that's how scale works. A person doesn't incur billions of losses, but they also don't have access to huge lines of credit and hundreds of millions of dollars in government support.

The rules are the rules and they've been the rules long before the pandemic began. This isn't March 2020 anymore. Get your staff to show up on time and you don't have to hand out 600 EUR. The rules incentivize running a competent operation, and if EI don't follow the rules and run a competent operation, they're not going to survive, regardless of whether you are pinching their pennies or not.

TheHoof

Clearly we have a difference of opinion here regarding whether a passenger should claim under EU261 and we're unlikely to change each others mind on this topic so lets leave that where it is and bring it back to my question regarding avenues for escalation should EI persist in claiming as yet unspecified "exceptional circumstances" as a reason for not paying out under EU261.

irishguy28

As a fellow passenger, and something of an EI fanboy: if EI really was in the situation where the *only* thing keeping it afloat was holding on to cash it should by right be paying out to customers with valid EC261/2004 claims, then it probably should have sold itself to Ryanair back when it had the chance. As in...that's not the EI I know!

Besides, if one condones EI breaking the law in this "specific and limited way", what other shortcuts and corner-cutting tricks should we also be expected to turn a blind eye to? How many of us subsidised them for months and years, while waiting for the promised vouchers to arrive?

alserire

On the most simplistic level they are claiming exceptional circumstances. So I suspect you’d be tasked with proving that it wasn’t. So. Can you show they’ve had this issue with traffic before? If you can’t and they haven’t then they may well be entitled to claim that that particular evening was an exceptional circumstance.

irishguy28

There are a number of claims agencies who will take up the case on a no-win, no-fee basis. I assume you're based in the US; not all agencies accept claims from every territory, but a bit of searching online should find a fairly reputable one that might handle your case.

Some of them require you to fill in your personal details first (meaning you will forever receive emails from them) before they even consider the flights in question and indicate whether they think it's a valid claim; but one agency that I can recommend that doesn't require any prior input of personal information, but which will give you an assessment of whether they think the specific case could lead to compensation, is http://euclaim.co.uk. As a first step, I'd advise you to enter the relevant flight details in the "Free Flight Check" section and see what they say (and please, report back here). I am not sure that that particular agency accepts claims from US residents, but it will at least give you an indication on their assessment of the likelihood of success of your claim.

sapman986

Logic 101 - It's not possible to prove a negative. No court in any EU jurisdiction would put the burden of proof on the customer in this case like you claim.

TheHoof

UK Citizen however currently living in Canada.

Thanks for your input and I'll keep that in my back pocket to give EI a fair chance to reconsider their position before engaging an agency. Will keep this thread updated.

irishguy28

Just to clarify; you should still go ahead now and punch in your flight details on their "Free Flight Checker". If they determine (though given what you've told us, this seems unlikely) that your case is a no-hoper, then that would be a good indication that you shouldn't waste any more time on this. As such, just use it now as a "sanity checker", without actually going further and submitting the claim to the agency, just so that you don't waste any more time if it is a case that the agency reckons won't pay out.

TheHoof

According to that site:
"Good news! You are possibly entitled to compensation"

CDTraveler

Does anyone know roughly what the processing time is for a valid EC261 claim is? The airline has already admitted the claim is valid, however no hint yet of when they might pay the compensation and it has been 8 weeks since the claim and supporting documents were submitted.

TheHoof

Completing the story on this one. The second response from EI didn't provide clarification of the exceptional circumstances and was essentially them telling me 'go away'.

I did spot the response referred to incorrect dates despite the details I provided (including the booking reference) being correct... I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and suggest a mix up at the customer services team caused the initial incorrect rejection if they were looking at the wrong dates

The second response did however say 'While I can not provide further details, I would like to direct you to contact the Commission for Aviation Regulation'.

So I did exactly that & sent the CAR the relevant details via their online portal. EI came back within a week acknowledging the escalation & after reviewing the case, have instructed EUR 600 / GBP 510 to be paid within 15 days. No need for external claim management agencies for this one...