Dear community,

Looking for soulmates to exchange experiences.

My July 19th flight was late by more than 3 hours. It was inside EU, so 261/2004 applies. Obviously they rejected my complaint under the notion of force majeure outside of their control.

However:

1. EU 261/2004 lists exceptions which affect the flight security (unrest, damage, strikes etc), while the issuenwas with the registration system, flight security was not affected;
2. 80% of flights were actually on time, only part of them were affected, so it is within their control whom select as a vendor.

I see the airlines uniting not to refund the customers under the operational force majeure clause outside of their control. Number of articles
on this topic. But shouldnt the EU regulation protect the customers in this particular case?

What do you think?

Welcome to FlyerTalk, Royalvegas!

If you can let us know which airline you are referring to I will move your post to a more appropriate forum.

NewbieRunner
Forum moderator

Since the OP was flying on Wizz Air the thread is being moved to the Other European Airlines forum.

/moderator

You are misreading the text in EC/261 here, as these listed exceptions are just some examples of causes which are seen as extraordinary circumstances.

The important line in EC/261 is "extraordinary circumstances which could not have been avoided even if all reasonable measures had been taken". This frees airlines from having to pay compensation.

How could any airline have foreseen the Crowdstrike/Microsoft windows problems, and what reasonable measures could they have taken?

Again, you are misreading EC/261. How can the airline have avoided these problems? What kind of measures could the airline have taken in advance when they selected their vendor? Unless you can proof that the airline willingly took risks by acquiring faulty systems, or buying them for an unreputable vendor, that "extraordinary circumstances" clause still stands.

Moreover, it's all a bit theoretical if you don't name the flight which you took. Crowdstrike took out entire airports, so it's highly relevant to know your exact route. Yes, some airlines escaped these problems, some airports did as well. Amsterdam and Eindhoven were a hot mess. Paris CDG was barely affected. But that's completely irrelevant if you want to proof that it wasn't "exceptional circumstances" which plagued some airlines and airports.

Zero chance of getting compensation. But of course, EC/261 does entitle you to claim any costs you might have made because of your delay, ie food/drinks when not already provided by the airline, or transport/taxi to your destination if you might have arrived at an inconvenient hour with no other options to get to your home/hotel.

If you want to be a guinea pig and take it to court I wish you all the luck. After all, EC/261 are essentially just guidelines, and it's up to the legal system to interpret and uphold them. But I think it would be futile and a big waste of time and money.

As you said yourself said this is a force majeure situation and it would be wrong to punish an airline for something that wasn’t really their fault.

Saying “but X airline chose this software” isn’t IMHO going to work.

For example if airlines choose to cancel flights from A-B if ATC flow controls are implemented doesn’t have to pay compensation even if another airline does manage to fly the same route. Yes the airline made a choice of which to cancel but equally it may not really had much of a choice at all. And at many airports the major carriers there are going to be hit much harder. Take AMS for example restrictions are always going to hit KLM harder than a once a day flight airline. Is it fair? Not sure but it recognises that the likes of KLM have much more flexibility to rebook onto their other flights to the same destination then the one or two flights a day airline.

And the courts and regulators have recognised it as well and basically said in those situations compensation isn’t due.

But even airlines whose own systems don’t use this particular IT product were affected because some of the airports they use did and were either basically closed or severely restricted operations. And it’s also the case where the vast majority of their systems were unaffected but something like crew rostering was amd that is definitely a flight safety issue.

The exceptions list in the regulation isn’t a definitive list of exclusions though it’s more of a list of examples. The courts have refined the list as well. A strike within an airline by say its pilots or ground staff isn’t an exempt cause but a strike at an airport or ATC is.

Passengers were not totally unprotected. Duty of care provisions kicked in so airlines are on the hook for costs of refreshments and hotels if one was required.

Thanks a lot for your valuable opinions.

I believe we have exhausted the topic of whether or not the airline could have mitigated the risk. I generally agree with you that a chance of foreseeing it was low.

On the other hand, the EC 261/2004 is there to protect the customers in the first place. As a customer, I can reasonably expect the airline to bring me from A to B safe and on time. Inability to do so by a marging considered significant by law entitles the customer for compensation.

And here we reach a sweet spot. The �accident� happens because of the faulty update. We have tools like QA environments, testing, qualified supervision etc to ensure it does not happen. Negligence to deliver a quality product and cause a hot mess in Schiphol should be compensated by ensuring the reestablishment of the customer satisfaction. The airline is merely an intermediary here, because as a customer I have zero control over these procedures while Crowdstrike has contractual obligations towards its customers.

In case this is considered a force majeure, we can attribute 99% of the cases to force majeure. Can a strike of the crew be condired a firce majeure? Well, it would be tough for them to foresee and prevent. In case the water is not brought on board and the flight is late - is it a force majeure? Why not? Everything they could not reasonably prevent should be considered a force majeure. Why to bother introducing such law in the first place then?

I agree this is all about interpretation. But where we differ in judgement is whether or not the system glitch could have been prevented. I believe that as a customer I should reasonably expect the testing procedures to work. Not only for the airlines, but for food, utilities, weapons, cars and other industries.

As I’ve already written a strike by airline employed staff isn’t force majeure. And a court decided that.

This is because there is a direct relationship between an airline and its employees and thus the airline has more control over resolving any situation than it does if say ATC or airport security staff or a catering contractor go on strike as those aren’t airline employees.

As to contractual arrangements, passengers are customers of the airline we aren’t cloud strikes customers.

The point if the regulation is to support passengers when most things go wrong, Before an airline could cancel a flight with absolutely zero costs and penalties and just leave passengers to fend for themselves wether is was rebooking other flights or providing / paying for refreshments and hotels.

And the airlines will still be paying out considerable sums in “duty of care” to many passengers.

Is the regulation perfect? Then no but it’s much better than nothing.

You are 100% right, there is no perfect law.

I just find it bizarre that crowdstrike is not liable for the damages it caused.