'andad

Mods, pleas don't move this just yet, it involves a One World partner, but mainly because the advice from another FT forum won't be near the calibre of this one.
Our Air Berlin flight into Berlin missed our connecting BA to LHR by some 20 minutes. Air Berlin customer services eventually put us on the first available BA (next day), voucher for a modest hotel, said to take taxis and submit receipts , and gave me their addres for "compensation" (did not tell us our entitlement, or the reason for delay) .
I duly submitted a claim for the taxis, and €400 for each of our family of seven per EC261.
Air Berlin replied today saying airlines are often delayed for various reasons(none stated), and offering €100 off a next flight with them, nothing else.
FT, should I consider this a natural attempt to avoid liability and simply e mail back refusing to accept their offer quoting EC261/2004 (again), hoping that they realise that is not going to be the end of the matter? Or should I immediately resort to one of the companies that will initiate proceedings in Germany against AB for a %?

InfiniteCycle

Write back to them and tell them to compensate you properly.

Land-of-Miles

If it comes to it you can sue AB in the UK in the small claims court.

'andad

Really LOM, in the UK courts? Thanks, that would make the process much easier. (Is that because Air Berlin have a ticket desk in the UK, at Stansted I believe, that brings them under UK small claims ?).

NickB

I am not sure that it is that obvious.

Jurisdiction is determined by reference to the so-called "Brussels I Regulation" (i.e. EU Regulation 44/2001).

The default rule under the Regulation is that of the domicile of the defendant, which, in the case of a company, means its statutory seat or central administration or principal place of business. In AB case, this would presumably be Germany.

The Regulation also provides for jurisdiction by the courts of the Member State where the service is provided. In the case of air transport, the Court decided in the Rehder case that, in the case of a contract of carriage made with a sole airline which is also the operating carrier, this would mean the origin and destination of the flight as specified in the contract of transport (ignoring any stopover point) as these were the points which had the closest link with the contract. So, all in all, the passenger would have the choice of suing between domicile of the carrier, origin of the flight or destination of the flight.

It is, OTOH, far from clear that, in the case of a contract of carriage involving multiple airlines, you could sue a carrier involved in one segment in the courts of the country of final destination if that carrier is not involved in carrying the passenger to or from that country but only in an earlier leg. I can see arguments both way and, afaik, there has been no conclusive resolution of the issue by the CJEU.

It may well be that, if you start an action in a UK court, AB does not raise a jurisdictional point (and the court itself does not raise it of its own accord either) but you cannot take that for granted.

Superroddy

Long time lurker, first time poster. I'm currently a bit further down the line than the OP in terms of pursuing Air Berlin for E261 compensation.

In our case (family of 4), a 7-hr delay on an AB flight (unspecified technical problems) resulted in a 1am arrival at a small airport where our rental car desk had long since shut for the night (we had a 2-hour onward journey). Prior to departure, AB staff had instructed us to book an overnight hotel at our destination and reclaim the costs.

So we got home and filed a claim with AB for the hotel costs and 250 Euro each compensation, as per E261. So a total of c Ł1150 Euro.

Their first response was a paltry 150 Euro (in total!) credit note. I replied, saying me that under E261 they were obliged to pay me the full amount. They then offered me a 1000 Euro credit note - better, but AB credit is of little use to us. So I replied again, saying me that under E261 they were obliged to pay me the full amount. That was two weeks ago and I've heard nothing since.

...... until yesterday, when I got an automated message telling me that they had closed my case and asking me to fill in a customer satisfaction survey! I'm currently considering what to do next and will share the outcomes on this thread.

Good luck to the OP with this shower of bandits.

EuropeToAsia

For reasons I'd rather not comment on publicly, airberlin is registered in the UK:

Air Berlin PLC, 32 High Street, Rickmansworth,
Hertfordshire WD3 1ER, UK

They have a reputation of ignoring justified compensation claims until they get a letter from your lawyer.

corporate-wage-slave

This too is my understanding. AB are not the only airline like this but they are notorious in trying to evade their responsibilities under the Regulation. I think you have 2 options (maybe 3 if you have a lot of time+money or some form of legal insurance). I'm assuming that 'andad is UK based

1) Get a solicitor in the UK to write a letter before action to AB. From what I've worked out from other cases AB tend to pay up a this point. You will struggle to recover the cost of that letter.

2) Initiate MCOL off your own back, taking on board the points made by NickB. Personally I would suggest your case is stronger if you bought the ticket whilst in the UK. You don't have much to lose and you should preface this action with your own "letter before action" to keep costs down and keep the judge sweet. There is a good chance they won't file a defence, many companies don't get around to it.

3) Noting the potential costs here. Get a German solicitor on to your case. A quick trawl of AB's forum and elsewhere should give you some leads. I suspect that will be the most likely to be successful but the German lawyer will be the main winner.

Land-of-Miles

My own practical experience came down to a Moneyclaim against LH under EU261 where I sued their UK registered entity and no jurisdictional issue was raised.

Provided there is a UK entity to pursue (and from above there seems to be here) I would like to think that a UK County Court would not look too kindly on jurisdictional game playing by AB. If it were that easy to dodge EU 261 claims in the UK surely BA would have moved their offices to Vilnius by now

NickB

The Brussels Reg contains more consumer-friendly provisions but these are explicitly excluded for contracts of transport (except for package holidays). I do not think that a court would regard this as "playing jurisdictional games." That said, there is always a lottery aspect with county courts, especially when it involves EU law.

I think that it is quite probable that no jurisdictional issue would be raised. But if one is raised, it could be somewhat tricky. As CWS noted, if the contract was concluded in the UK, this would help.

As others have noted too, I would have thought that the perspective of formal proceedings is likely to make AB take things more seriously without necessarily eventually needing to go the whole hog.

I would have thought that Reg 261/2004 considerations would figure so low as to be beyond the vanishing horizon among the factors determining where you have your company seat/central administration/registered office.

'andad

Quote from CWS post :

1) Get a solicitor in the UK to write a letter before action to AB. From what I've worked out from other cases AB tend to pay up a this point. You will struggle to recover the cost of that letter.

2) Initiate MCOL off your own back, taking on board the points made by NickB. Personally I would suggest your case is stronger if you bought the ticket whilst in the UK. You don't have much to lose and you should preface this action with your own "letter before action" to keep costs down and keep the judge sweet. There is a good chance they won't file a defence, many companies don't get around to it.
End quote

Many thanks for all the advice everyone, BA Forum to the rescue again. I am indeed UK based, so MCOL or a UK solicitor letter-before-action would seem the best route. Is it relevant who initiates these actions? My UK son actually bought the tickets (one PNR AB and BA fortunately), but I have taken the case to AB because he doesn't have the time, I do. I wouldn't haven gone for AB 100% EC261 if they had at least had someone meet the incoming AB a/c to help the 20 or so pax connecting to BA, and if their ground customer service desk hadn't specifically told us to take taxis to the hotel AB nominated "keep the receipts" and gave us the Germany address "for compensation", to later offer €100 discount. Actually BA didn't help much either. We immediately went to the gate of the later BA to LHR and a BA English uniform literally shrugged his shoulders and said "go to AB". Btw, didn't BA extol the virtues of OneWorld as partners who offer the same standards of service? I'm sure BA would honour have honoured this claim by now.

Land-of-Miles

Ideally both affected names would be on the claim issued at MCOL. However MCOL isn't really set up for joint claims (or I have never worked out how to do it). I normally issue the whole claim in my sole name before which typically works, in the worst case you can subsequently modify the claim to joint names if the respondent wants to be pedantic about this.

Superroddy

Almost a year later (see post #6 above) I have received a settlement from AB. and I thought some people might be interested to hear my outcome. I wrote to AB UK office with a 'letter before action' to advise I would be taking action to recover the monies legally owed to me under EC261 (NB I used the following address which has superseded the one provided in post #7)
Air Berlin plc, c/o Browne Jacobson LLP, 6 Bevis Marks, Bury Court, London, EC3A 7BA

My final claim was for 1240 Euros. Three weeks after my letter, I received a phone call from Germany offering me the legally-required 250 Euros delay compensation for each of the four people in my party - or 1400 Euros in total in AB vouchers.

I said 'no thanks' because my claim was for 1240 Euros, not 1000 Euros - but that to resolve the matter, I would accept 1100 Euros as a compromise settlement. She said she would check that with her manager and phone back later that day. Needless to say, I never heard any more.

Then a week later, I checked my bank account and a payment of 1000 Euros (sterling equivalent) had appeared - I was given no notification that the payment had been made.

So I am still 240 Euros short - HOWEVER, because of the much-strengthened Euro exchange rate, I am only about Ł70 worse off than if they had paid up in full when I first made the claim! So on the basis that I more or less got what I wanted, and didn't incur any legal fees whilst doing so, I am not going to pursue matters any further.

However, Air Berlin's appalling service from start to finish of this saga will mean they never get any more business from me - and I've already advised dozens of other people never to use AB. No wonder the company has big financial problems, and I will not shed a tear if/when they go under.

To anyone considering taking EC261 action against AB - do it! You don't need to use one of the claims companies, but you DO need to be persistent and stubborn.

caz312

well done - the hotel on arrival was always going to be difficult as there is no liability under EU261 duty of care to provide any accommodation/transport once you get to the arrival airport. You may have had a stronger case if you had received something in writing confirming they would reimburse (due to this not being covered under EU261)

corporate-wage-slave

Thanks for letting us know, and for giving the steps involved. I mentioned up thread that AB has a poor reputation in this area and it's by no means the worst airline in that respect either. We're fairly lucky in the UK that there is a fairly robust small claims process, in a lot of countries it either doesn't exist (Finland, Belgium) or it's so daunting that people are put off from using it.