A question to those located here in NL, does anyone have any personal (positive) experience with any of the various online delay compensation claim services? Putting my details in a couple of them they say I could be entitled to up to €400 x 2. I have already claimed with the airline and had a letter back denying eligibility due to the technical problem being a 'factory fault' and not down to airline maintenance.

Any advice or tips would be much appreciated.

Just use the European small claims procedure. You can use it yourself. Costs about €211 on griffierecht for a €800 claim which will be awarded to you when you win your case. Just won €800 from az. No lawyer needed - written procedure.

Have a claim open via EUclaim for 2 AZ flights (connection). First tried AZ directly, they claim the delay was due to congestion in Rome (we flew straight in, couldn’t be better).
Since March EUclaim is trying, they were also told due to ATC congestion. EUcliam claim told me in June that they will start a court case. In August got a message from them stating that they have not forgotten but they serve court cases based on who's nearest to the expiration of 2 years after flight was taken. Have not heard back since so I presume they are serving others first.

My claim is for 400 euros.

Good experience with EUClaim vs. easyJet: EZY denied reponsibility based on "extraordinary circumstances" (technical fault on aircraft). In my original corresppondence with them I already referred to all applicable cases that indicate that a technical fault is not an extraordinary circumstance. They denied to pay, so I gave the case to EUClaim who indeed won. So all fine, just with a sour taste since they won while I didn't, based on the same information.

BTW, as Brendan88 says they handled my case based on the "expiry date" as well, so for Brendan88 nothing to worry about - it may take some time but that doesnt mean they wont win.

Thanks everyone for the quick responses. I am inclined to give EUclaim a go, for an easy life. In my case the aircraft went tech due to a fault in the battery of the APU apparently. They are claiming it was delivered like that (well it was a 787 so no real surprise at an electrical fault), and quoting a ruling from 2013 they reckon they are not required to pay compensation, citing extraordinary circumstance. My stance is, if Boeing delivered a 787 with a fault then the airline should be able to claim from Boeing for costs incurred, including compensating their customers.

Give it a go, I'd say. There's no harm in trying, and the only thing you risk is getting that same annoyed feeling "why did I need EUClaim for this?"...

Same thing for me. KLM refused to pay for an aircraft that broke down upon departure from the gate. Involved EUClaim and (eventually) they got the money from KLM. From the 400 euro due 150 euro went to EUClaim in fees, so I received about 250 in the end.

I've just made sure my mother and her family got their €600 compensation each from MH for delay due to technical reasons. Make sure you write a letter to KLM yourself and also use the latest ruling were the European Supreme Court ruled that technical faults do not count towards extraordinary circumstances.

You can PM me if you want the letter I wrote.

Airlines almost always try to refuse based on the first letter. It's just math to how many people will actually try a second time to get their money. You can also use EUClaim or any other site, but basically to take up a large portion of the money are you entitled to by law!

I always send out letters, complaint or compliment. It doesn't take me much time and for the past years have had many succeses, but you have to me persistent!

Did you get paid by MH? They seem a difficult bunch.

Received reaction that they approved the claim for €600 each and also 50% discount (base fare only) on another Y ticket. Just send all the paperwork to MH, so we don't have the money yet but all signs look green from here

Impressive

I have already pretty much composed a letter to give the airline one more chance then I will give it to EUclaim. In this case the airline have quoted to me the ruling from the Rechtbank in Den Haag in 2013 on which they are basing their claim of extraordinary circumstance. I can put enough industry language in there to let them know I am serious and know a little of what I'm talking about! I will confess it was not KL but another AMS based carrier, also fond of blue, leisure routes, subsidiary of a German company....

I find this interesting (I'm weird like that), so I looked into it a little more.

I just don't know if you made a mistake in saying they referred to a ruling in The Hague or the EU ruling of Wallentin-Hermann?! That decision did make it possible for airlines to claim extraordinary circumstances when tech faults were in play, even though there had been regular maintenance or if parts broke, even though life expectancy wasn't reached yet (for instance). Also a possibility of malfunction on new parts/aircrafts were mentioned.

However, in the CJEU ruling C-257/14 this has pretty much been scraped (for the most part). Although malfunction can be in play, even though all precautions/maintenance and safety measures have been followed, it doesn't mean that it can then be explained as extraordinary circumstance.

Quote from the ruling:
"While the Court admits that such a technical defect could occur unexpectedly, it perceives it as a defect intrinsically connected to the airline's operating business (para 41). When could a technical defect then be seen as an extraordinary circumstance? "where it was revealed by the manufacturer of the aircraft comprising the fleet of the air carrier concerned, or by a competent authority, that those aircraft, although already in service, are affected by a hidden manufacturing defect which impinges on flight safety."

There is more here:
http://recent-ecl.blogspot.nl/2015/0...technical.html

Make sure you use this ruling to undermine their argument for the ruling of 2013.

Good luck!

Hi Kevin, I'm very pleased you are weird like that! They did indeed refer to Wallentin Hermann, they do mention the Rechbank Den Haag, but give the following link:

http://uitspraken.rechtspraak.nl/inz...keyword=boeing

This refers to a ruling by the Rechtbank Nord Holland over a case with Transavia. This is getting thoroughly confusing now! I will most certainly refer to the CJEU ruling, I am assuming that they are throwing out a few legal sounding phrases knowing that most passengers will give up at that stage. Hopefully they will be smart enough to realize that that policy will not work with me. Their argument seems to be simply, nothing to do with our maintenance, the plane was delivered like that.

Thanks again for you help!

Ur welcome

Hope it helps!