V10

I'd prefer them to have proper contingencies in place that don't involve being left in the lurch for many, many hours to be honest.

There's a risk that by funding potential compensation payments by means of a surcharge that airlines will go back to doing what's best for them operationally and hang the passengers, because they're going to be compensated. This is what the regulation was brought in to prevent in the first place.

It's all well and good, but I imagine the majority of passengers will care more about getting to their destination when they're supposed to, rather than duty of care and compensation.

h15t0r1an

Were it not for a thought that the aircraft from ZRH might still need repositioning for a following flight after it landed at LCY, only 12 passengers on a flight that went "tech" does make one speculate. I do recall particularly out of ZRH on LX to London, one of the several flights from 1900 onwards being regularly cancelled due to hard-to-see "weather" etc., and the passengers rebooked onto an available flight leaving/landing just 1 hour later... perhaps with such a low load of passengers I am wondering whether commercial considerations came into play here. Similar also seemed to happen on BA flights out of LHR at crack of dawn to places like Amsterdam that I was on many years ago, a flight leaving at 0600 or so would be combined due to whatever reason with a flight leaving an hour or so later to the same destination and even the combined flight that resulted still seemed to have a surprisingly low load.

If the aircraft did not need repositioning then surely compensating however many of the 12 passengers booked on the flight would actually claim, would work out cheaper than the marginal cost of even fuel to actually run the flight. Especially if the following flight was scheduled to land only 1 hour later.

I just think this decision sounded quite commercial actually.

serfty

Remember that, in regard to (A) - the regulation is supposed to be punitive, not compensatory - indeed the regulation make reference that the regulated penalties can be considered a basis for minimum compensation leaving the passenger the right to endeavor to obtain such over and above the mandated minumum.

As to (b), clearer definitions are in the pipeline with upcoming changes - see http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/briti...l#post22351335 .

corporate-wage-slave

I have now read the full Huzar judgement, and here's my amateur attempt at trying to make sense of it for this thread.

The key issue is that this Appeal judgement - which in itself could be appealed by Jet2 - has effectively set the bar to "extraordinary circumstances" due to technical reasons quite high, and for most cases the customer should now get compensation. Routine maintenance issues, wear and tear, are not considered extraordinary. A hidden manufacturing defect which led to some sort of recall perhaps would be extraordinary. The logic behind the judgement is a lot more complex than that of the Manchester appeal, and is completely different to His Honour Judge Platts straightforward analysis, but nevertheless comes to the same conclusion.

My feelings is that BA will continue to rely on the CAA's dodgy dossier on the issue, unless the CAA and the other National Enforcement Bodies decide to take it out of service. It was referred to in the Manchester ruling but not in this appeal. However I think the Huzar judgement can be used as a clear reason for pursuing cases against BA, even if the MCOL charade has to go on.

I don't think BA are particularly blameworthy here, as far as I can tell all airlines are using the NEB defence at the moment, and in terms of protecting their shareholders' assets I can understand why they do this.

If you had a case rejected by BA due to technical/extraordinary reasons, you can now have another go at it, citing this ruling, and inviting them to pay up. You may still end up in MCOL, however.

Dave Noble

I am not sure. If the airline rebooked you on to a flight that was due to arrive within the 2 hours, I think that as far as that flight it concerned, no compensation is due. Once ticketed on the next flight that then had a delay, I am not sure whether you can use the original time or whether it needs to be 2 hours delay of this rebooked flight

Reading the rules, it would seem to suggest to me that the 2 flights are 2 separate issues . each delay/cancellation has its own compensation

NickB

The amount paid for the ticket is completely irrelevant to the issue. The compensation is meant to indemnify the passenger, albeit in a rough and ready way, for the inconvenience caused by the delay or compensation. That inconvenience bears no relation whatsoever to the price paid for the ticket: whether you have paid 2GBP or 2000GBP for your ticket, the inconvenience that you suffer owing to the cancellation or delay is exactly the same.
It is self-evident that, if you make airlines liable, the cost will be reflected in the ticket. I see no basis whatsoever, however, for your assumption that it puts significant upward pressure on air fares, as opposed to marginal upward pressure. Whatever analysis have been carried out, including by the airlines themselves, tend to suggest that the cost is marginal.

I disagree. Compensation is plainly designed to be compensatory (albeit in a standardised form) as the CJEU has repeated on numerous occasion. In Sturgeon, for instance, the Court explicitly stated that the Art 7 compensation is designed to compensate for the loss of time suffered by the passenger. If it really were punitive, it would be directly linked to fault by the carrier, which it is not.

DarkHelmetII

this sounds like government mandated insurance

Blueboys999

Spot on. It's like basing the level of compensation for a whiplash injury on the value of the car you're driving.

In terms of a deterrent to the airlines and a softening of the blow for consumers I believe the levels are actually about where they should be.

serfty

Airline bodies certainly regard the compensation levels as punitive, and while not specifically referred as such in the preamble to the regulation, it is clear the compensation levels are raised deliberately: (http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-conte...928845&from=EN)Also airline bodies describe them as punitive:

IATA: (http://www.iata.org/policy/Documents...tion-paper.pdf)
ELFAA:¹ (http://www.elfaa.com/documents/ELFAA...pensat_001.pdf) ¹ ELFAA: "European Low Fares Airline Association"

Dave Noble

The airlines whining about it being "punative" doesn't mean that it actually is.

Centipede100

As this is against a background whereby the airlines have actively been lobbying the European Commission, Council of Ministers, EU officials and MEPs to try to change the Reg, then why would they regard it as anything else.

The Reg together with all precedent case law rulings, as NickB has mentioned above, state that it is compensation for loss of time, period.

That it may also incentivise airlines to alter some of their less than customer-friendly operational decisions due to irrops and similar recoveries following a technical breakdown or similar, is surely a by-product of the introduction of the Reg itself.

serfty

Fair enough - though there must be some adjective to adequately describe, in this context, the intention of "... raise the standards of protection set by that Regulation ... to strengthen the rights of passengers ...".

stifle

No compensation is payable in this situation as you were not delayed by at least three hours.

Dave Noble

Plus look at how airlines treat customers when things go wrong when no rules exist - just need to look at US carriers for why this regulation is a good thing imo

Centipede100

Stifle

This was a cancellation situation governed by Article 5.1(c)(iii) not a delay:

(iii) they are informed of the cancellation less than seven days before the scheduled time of departure and are offered re-routing, allowing them to depart no more than one hour before the scheduled time of departure and to reach their final destination less than two hours after the scheduled time of arrival.

In this particular case, csutter would be entitled to compensation because the airline failed to get them rerouted to their final destination less than 2 hours after the originally scheduled time.