MSPeconomist

It's not a perfect translation, but the key is why DL is declining to refund and what the underlying circumstances were. COVID-19 doesn't give everyone a right to get a full refund for nonrefundable tickets.

Like someone said earlier, it doesn't seem to have been written by someone who knows German well, and especially the norms for business correspondence in German.

at-qbkilla

Why not try it in English?

UKtravelbear

And the EU Commission has flat out rejected those lobbying efforts and told Nations and Airlines that the regs still apply especially in respect of refunds for flight cancellations.

The ony easment is that basically no one is enforcing the 7 day repayment element. Not that there was much (if any) enforcement of that in the past anyway.

N830MH

Very easy to use.

I can says Danke and Bitte. I speak German and English.

8420PR

Sometimes the best customer service is being honest to a customer and telling them that what they want is unreasonable. I much prefer a clear 'no' than endless generic email templates.

Looking at the lawyers twitter feed, I GUESS if Delta were rejecting something reasonable or legally required (e.g. a refund for a cancelled flight) it would have been mentioned, as in the other tweets it is.

BER Flyer

Ok, my 2 cents as a german Medallion member: not knowing the full story i GUESS that the ticket is a delta plated but AF/KL issued ticket for an airline canceled flight. In this case Delta would give a full refund but if ticket was sold in europe then it was sold/issued by AF/KL and they play the "voucher only" game right now. And yes, it's illegal, if the airline is canceling your flight you're entiteld to an full refund. So the customer requested an refund from Delta which sent the request to AF as they got the money but AF basicly said "get in line...".
I agree that the text was not written by an german CSR ( or the person got an boiler plate text from the US and translated in into german ). All the major airlines in europe trying to fight as long as possible to hold on to those billions owned to their customers and making it as hard as possible to get your money back.

oliver2002

The twitter post is by the lawyer aka kexbox . He is pretty serious and successful, I'm sure such a stupid CR email by DL/AF-KL makes for good PR. But its definitely not fake.

drminn

I just got my money back from AF on a US - Europe ticket. Took me about a month of online requests, calling AF, filing DOT complaints.

vinnmann

I agree. I can't find where it says what was cancelled, why, and when? I understand with Covid, there are tons of cancellations and tons of fee waivers. If DL cancelled the flight and the pax requested a refund after that, the pax should get the refund, but what really happened?

Did the pax cancel his ticket, get a voucher and when the airline later cancelled his flight demand refund? Did the pax no-show for the flight and demand a refund? Did the flight time get changed less than 90 minutes and the pax demanded a refund? Was there a schedule change the pax accepted and later changed his mind and demanded a refund? In those cases, DL is justified to tell him "fine, sue me" especially if the pax said they were going to contact a lawyer (which we don't know).

Despite the phrase "the customer is always right", sometimes the customer is wrong. There are too many unknowns to be armchair quarterbacking this.

I also agree with MSPEconomist's signature that states "we are all Parisians" Unfortunately, my Paris trip this summer has been cancelled.

defrosted

As in the Queen's English?

at-qbkilla

Do you refer to British English?

garykung

Are you aware of that email is not sent by Customer Relations, but Reservation?

Also most importantly - just because that person is a lawyer does not mean he is correct.

defrosted

I would think the Queens English would get a better response than just British English, but American English as suggested, being this is a letter to Delta, an American company, would be best. They could have tried Canadian, but then they would have had to apologize.

fuyao

I have access to the full email conversation.
The pax asked for full refund within 7 days under EU261 for a booking where flights were fully cancelled by the airline.
No compensation for flight cancellation or hotel costs or anything, just full refund.
Ticketing + marketing carrer = DL, feeder flights KL outbound and AF inbound.

Let me know if you want to know anything more

garykung

Want to confirm - DL is not the airline canceling the flight?