Germanfflyer

It seems to be the norm now, that there are no non-refundable tickets any more if you buy them in Germany:
Landgerichts Frankfurt (2-24 S 152/13)
Amtsgericht Frankfurt 32 C 4707/14-84

If you buy your LH ticket elsewhere in the EU it should still be the same as the LH headquarters is under German law and you can take them to court in Germany

You will get back 95% of the fare and 100% of all taxes and surcharges.

Further more the same was ruled on all cancellation fees that German tour operators charge - they need to prove as to what their actual loss was.
No flat % charge allowed.

So this becomes the norm now for all travel related contracts bought in Germany.

vd0t

How does this work in practice?

If I buy my airline tickets through a German OTA, it becomes refundable?

Germanfflyer

Actually yes as the contract was "signed" under German law....

But beware that it will not be that easy to get your money back - LH will give you some trouble and you might get a lawyer to actually get the money back - so at this stage this is only for somebody that can not travel and therefore is in a loose or fight for the money situation!

rcs85551

Well, you will most likely need to sue the respective airline in court to try to get your money back.

Yes, there is a precedent now - but your thread title is quite misleading, since individual circumstances may vary. It is highly questionable that you would get the same result as in the referenced ruling of the Landgericht Frankfurt in the event of a cancellation on short notice...

Unterwegs

Keep in mind that the Landgericht is only a regional court. Other courts could (and often have) decide very different. I don't think the airlines will just roll over and refund tickets. Most likely they will test this in higher courts first - even in exactly identical circumstances.

Germanfflyer

Wrong the law does not differentiate that - the point is that the airline would have to proof in court what their cost were for the cancellation - which they can and will not do - as that would compromise their business model.

Germanfflyer

You are wrong here Langericht is binding for all lower courts and also the tour operators are already in trouble for the very same reason they are already testing the higher courts and have failed so far - a flat % fee for a cancellation is going to be a thing of the past very soon!

This thing is very solid as the law clearly states the airline has to provide proof as to what the cost were they occurred because of the cancellation - which they can and will not do as it would mean to open up their books to the court and public.

YuropFlyer

This is some of the most crazy rule EVER..

Basically, if this becomes the norm, what will happen is:

Airlines will stop offering any kind of non-full-flex ticket on the German market/travel agents etc. (ie, everything that would be under this new "rule") -> everyone who wishes to book non-flex (ie, affordable) tickets would have to do so at a foreign OTA.

Result: German travel agencies would go out of the market for good*. Besides, not changing much.

*They would probably set of foreign daughter companies and just forward everything there ;-)

I doubt this rule will be uphold - any sane judge will see what the result will be.

Besides that, LH already does offer tickets with coupons that you can fly in any order you want - they're obviously sold at big extra costs, but they're acting within the law.

Flying Lawyer

Landgericht is binding on nothing and the judgement is only valid inter partes. But it would certainly be interesting reading these judgements.

Often1

This is a huge loss for the German consumer. There have always been fully refundable tickets and those were the norm of flying for many years. The concept of a penalty fare, one in which the change/cancellation fee is much larger than the cost to the carrier, only came about with dirt cheap discounted fares.

The result of this, if it stands up in other courts will simply be that German consumers won't have access to those cheap penalty fares, even when they wish to take the risk.

If one wants a nanny, hire one.

Grog

This is only a huge loss to certain consumers--it's a gain to many others, but I think you know that.

Cheering of that which was "a norm for many years" is not useful. For many years, it took up to 180 days for a Bundespost customer to get his or her phone line installed at home, and we had to hope that a village had enough telephone ports. Nevermind what an East German went through.

This is not a huge loss to German customers on the whole. It's far more a loss to airline companies. And I shed no tears for LH with its 10% fare / 90% fee nonsense.

This has the potential to result in more transparency and simplicity. If airlines did this voluntarily and willingly, judges wouldn't be injecting themselves.

FD1971

This is one really strange conclusion.

I do not have any numbers, but I am very sure that selling domestic tickets within Germany is a major major income stream for travel agencies in Germany...

Lack

Want to be a predator, move to the jungle.

Passengers rights are way behind on advancements compared to airline revenue management improvements, fleet efficiency and consolidation in the market. Let's not pretend that throwing them a bone every now and them is going to be break a business.

Hagbard Viking

What has this got to do with passenger rights? You have always been free to buy refundable tickets. If you agree to the terms and conditions of a non-refundable ticket how are your rights violated if you are later denied a refund?

Lack

So for example, if a merchant sells a bottle of water for 1000 dollars or the same bottle of water for 1 dollar + your first borne blood then it's perfectly fine since you're given a choice?

The airline has T-14 days to cancel the flight, refund the money and walk away. They have the right to sell your seat twice and leave you at the gate.

They have all the tools to recoup their losses, and from what I gather, if they just showed their effort to that extent they'd be off the hook in this trial. They decided not to.