Emirates eu 261 offers
 

My parents were delayed over 5 hours from man to mru due to a technical fault. Following the advice on here I sent the standard blurb and ek have offered 15k miles each!!!!

I asked for 600 euros each!!!

Unbelievable.:td:

What are the forum views on this?

Dear xxxx

Thank you for taking the time and trouble to detail your concerns submitted Online.

Naturally, I was sorry to learn that you were affected by the delay of flight EK18 from Manchester to Dubai on 01 November 2013 and on behalf of Emirates, I do apologise for any inconvenience this may have caused.

Although every effort is made to adhere to scheduled departure times, which is an integral part of our product, regrettably there are occasions when flights are delayed due to unforeseen circumstances.

Passengers are able to claim for compensation for delayed flights from the UK where the delay to the arrival in Dubai is more than three hours and if the delay was not due to extraordinary circumstances which were beyond an airline's control.

Our records show that the aircraft attempted 3 start ups but each time the auxiliary power unit failed. It is the auxiliary power unit that provides the aircraft with power before the main engines start up when the aircraft is pushed back from stand. A large tug which could push back the A380 was sourced. Unfortunately, when this was completed, a fault was detected whereby the anti-ice 'pilot' was showing a heat fault. As the aircraft could not be dispatched with a fault of this nature, it was necessary to de-plane passengers whilst the fault was rectified and the aircraft could be declared airworthy.

Please be assured that the health and safety of our passengers is paramount and is something that we would never jeopardise. In this respect our flights will only be operated once the all clear has been given by our Engineers.

I would like to take this opportunity to assure you that we do have procedures in place for flight disruptions and our ground staff will make every effort to minimise any inconvenience caused to passengers.

I note your comments regarding payment under legislation EC261/2004. EU compensation does not apply in extraordinary circumstances such as this as this fault occurred at the last minute and had not been detected in previous maintenance.

I would draw your attention to an article published on the CAA UK website on 24th July 2013. This document was produced after consultation with European regulators, engagement with technical experts and discussion with the airline industry. It provides passengers with guidance and clarification on what is considered to be extraordinary circumstances under legislation EC261/2004.

For further information, I would suggest that you visit the website and under the section headed Passengers, click on 'Guidance on passenger rights and resolving travel related problems'. Under EC guidelines please see: 'Extraordinary Circumstances Guidelines'

This provides clarification for passengers and in this instance I would draw your attention to section 26 titled 'unexpected flight safety shortcomings' which refers to technical defects which become apparent immediately prior to departure or in-flight (where the system or part had been maintained in accordance with the required maintenance programme) and which require investigation and/or repair before the aircraft is airworthy for the intended flight.

Whilst I am unable to change what has happened, I would like to assure you that it is never our intention to have dissatisfied passengers. Therefore, as a gesture of goodwill, I have credited 15,000 Skywards miles each to your and Mr xxx accounts.

Mrs XxxxI would like to offer my own apologies for any disappointment you may have experienced. Please be assured that we do take all passenger feedback seriously and we will continue to seek this from our customers so that we can make improvements, and offer the highest standard of service that our customers have come to expect of Emirates.

Thank you for taking the time and trouble to contact to us and for the benefit of your feedback, and once again, please accept my sincere apologies.

Yours Sincerely

A very thought out and detailed response from EK. I wish more carriers would do that and not a cookie cutter response.

I'm no expert on EU compensation but sounds like they may be correct.

http://ec.europa.eu/transport/themes...ances-list.pdf

I think EK are wrong here. This is a maintenance issue. I do not think a plane going mech at the last minutes exempts the airline for paying compensation.

Although I do like that the letter was situation specific; that is, it was not a standardised letter.

Certainly a detailed and courteous letter, but it seems pretty clear to me that around 80% of its content would nevertheless have been simply cut & pasted from a standardised template. Paragraph five ("Our records show ....) is the only genuinely 'individual' part of the response, where Emirates is careful to present some very specific information along with more generalised comments on EU261, in the firm belief that this constitutes a robust defence. The paragraph can obviously be tailored according to the circumstances of all manner of delays where compensation claims are subsequently received.

I don't know a whole lot about the finer pints of the legislation but my gut feel is that EK are wilfully mis-interpreting its provisions to suit their purpose. A further letter from you challenging their response is most unlikely to bring any additional compensation. EK will just maintain their stance, and so it's then a question of how confident you are that pursuing legal options (as opposed to simply accepting the goodwill offer) will produce the desired result.

Didn't someone else on the forum take emirates to court and get the compensation (and also kept the miles as well!)????

I'm genuinely confused now and I guess that's what the airline intends. But is a fault of the plane now not something you can claim for? In this case there were two separate faults and they are not accepting liability!

It reads that EK is just trying to avoid paying out what is due

Write back stating that mechanical failures are not classified as extraordinary circumstances and that you require payment within 7 days or action will be taken to claim the money back

No article was published in 2013 on the CAA site that changed the regulation. That was simply a draft list of what was proposed to be considered ; the terms "draft" and "proposal" should indicate to EK that it is not adopted; this has no effect on the current law

Seems that EK is following the BA approach of claiming everything to be extraordinary until actually a case is started to claim the money

I respect the way Emirates Responded and gave you a detailed reply.

Apart for EU we need to find out more before we can comment.

I agree. Just out of curiosity I went through these guidelines. As you mentioned they are just draft guidelines and there is a big disclaimer on it that it does not have any legal backing!

An APU has nothing to do with pushback tugs. You would need a pushback tug regardless of whether your APU is serviceable or not. The additional GSE needed to start-up with an APU fault is an ASU, not a pushback tug. That part of their note makes no sense at all.

That said, there have been many successful defenses (one rarely/never hears of the cases where the airline wins!) of EU 261/2004 claims for technical faults using the "extraordinary circumstances" defense. There is a two part test that has to be applied :

a) circumstances are extraordinary
b) could not have been avoided even if all reasonable measures had been taken

The merits of your case will of course depend on the specific circumstances of the situation, but having handled hundreds of 261/2004 claims on the airline side, I would be very confident of successfully defending this one under the extraordinary circumstances defense (assuming the routine pre-flight maintenance was completed as per the Airbus and GCAA approved maintenance program.

Of course, Emirates may just choose to settle to avoid the hassle, but in my opinion and experience, you stand a reasonable likelihood of failing in any escalation of this issue assuming the facts are as stated above.

Despite 2 separate faults?

I would write back to EK indicating that the document that it referenced has no relevence since it just a draft proposal plus also refer to case C‑549/07 Friederike Wallentin-Hermann where Alitalia tried to defend on technical fault being extraordinary

where the ECJ ruled that
( see http://curia.europa.eu/juris/liste.j...n&num=C-549/07 )

I would suggest that the European Court of Justice's ruling may hold more weight than a draft proposal

EK's approach seems to be no different to BA which seems to be trying to class all problems as extraordinary until someone goes to moneyclaim.gov.uk and then suddenly realises that compensation is due. Have a look at the EU261 thread on the BA forum for examples

Thanks Dave, right now I'd settle for 32.5k miles each.

I would write back and claim the EUR600 ; this seems not to be the 1st time that EK has tried to avoid paying out. That they have given you 15k has no relelvence to the EUR600 due

If the airline admits the claim then could negotiate on an alternative payment, but make sure the claim is based spot on to what the regulations say. Asking for something else could give them grounds to reject it

Mechanical problems are generally not valid to be classed as extraordinary. If a herd of wildebeest ran into the aeroplane and damaged the APU that would be extraordinary; a normal mechanical problem is not extraordinary