It will definitely be a scrap, they make their own rules.

We were downgraded from F on the way back from our Wedding. They sent their offer but there was no negotiation as they then ignored all our emails.

Small claims court or NWNF lawyer should grab their attention.

In UK, using a solicitor would be at the claimant's own expense. Paying for a solicitor ( even out of winnings ) would severely negate the value

If it is a downgrade situation , just claiming though small claims is an easy procedure and needs no legal expertise

If it is a delay/cancellation, then if not wanting to spend time dealing with it , companies like euclaim are a easy solution

I think euclaim/Bott and Co take about 27% of any winnings as their fee (plus VAT?).

Some will deem that acceptable even for the simplest of cases.

For those that do not want to do their own small claim, then 73% of the amount due is better than the zero that not proceeding would give

27% of EUR250 is only EUR67.50 and of EUR600 its only EUR162 which do not seem that bad

Fortunately my parents have their own legal counsel (me).

I don't want to commence proceedings so will start with the letter before action and see what happens...

FWIW, on Feb 5th, the EU passed some draft amendments which clarifies the compensation for involuntary Downgrades. I'm not sure of the process to finally enact them however.

The main thing is that compensation is based on "Flight Price", not "Ticket Price".

Draft changes start from page 11: amending Regulation (EC) No 261/2004 establishing common rules ...

The full lists of amendments to this draft in the passing of this are here in this 2.1 MByte word document

Starts from page 341: Wednesday, 5 February 2014 - Strasbourg - texts (Part 3)

"Ticket Price" has been removed from article 10 to be replaced by (newly defined) "Flight Price":
"Ticket Price" has been specifically defined as well:

Thanks for posting this! So the issue whether you will be reimbursed based on the price of the whole ticket or just the downgraded sector is resolved. It goes in favour of the airline, but I would say it's also more logical.

If the legislators never intended refunds to be always based on ticket prices, it staggers belief that this was what ended up in the wording of the directive. Any fool could have told them using ticket prices would cause ambiguity and confusion. An astonishing degree of incompetence.

I always thought that the use of ticket price in all cases could not be defended and that the UK Civil Aviation Authority's guidance made sense.

Hi,

Just to let you guys know. Still up with a fight with Emirates about my downgrade. At this point its in the hands of the swedish ARN witch is the NEB in sweden. Emirates still offers the same 75% of the sector fare witch is 3470SEK on a downgrade from F -> C ARN-DXB.

I have also tried to get Emirates to compensate me with upgrade vouchers or other thing that I might use in future travels with them.

Hi there Simonsays

In light of the comprehensive post by serfty above, I am more inclined than ever to believe that this is now a fight you will not win. But of course no harm in trying I guess.

It seems to me that (notwithstanding what might have gone before) Emirates are keen to draw a line in the sand and not be pushed into refunding amounts of money that they feel is not only unjustified, but - in fairness to them - quite irrational. They will have drafted their responses to you on the back of considered advice from their specialist legal team (ie rather than some unqualified member of the customer services department)

Plus ..... based on information provided by serfty, Emirates now have the full force of clearly-defined legislation behind them.

In short I find it hard to imagine any grounds for a Judge to rule against them.

Even if there are changes subsequent to 5th february, anything before 5th february woul be unaffected

Rather than messing around with EK and the NEB, isn't it time to finally stop discussing and simply start proceedings. Once it knows you are serious about proceeding , it may change its tune

I will wait 2 more days for the Swedish NEB ARN to get reponse from EK. 6 march is the last day so I hope to get a verdict from them this or next week.

I asked Emirates for a compensation like a money voucher on EK to use in the future. I pointed out that I want it to be on a higher amount then the cash compensation they offerd me. Guess what.... they offer me the same 3470SEK for Electronic Miscellaneous Document that they call it...

If i want to send it to court I have to take it to the UAE court? Since the swedish will not try this case according to the rules they have!

In the uae it is a painful process and expensive and time consuming to bring a case to court.

If you did it in Sweden I'm not sure how you would enforce the judgement obtained in Sweden here in dubai. I'm sure that if ek was found against In any court they'd pay up but if they were feeling like being difficult the difficulty of trying to enforce an overseas judgement is there.

If the Swedish courts won't help you then I suggest you take eks offer.

You would sue in the local country. The EU261 legislation applies to Sweden. You will simply sue the Swedish Emirates entity