fassy

Only option then, sue LH. But make sure to talk to an expert lawyer before and get consultation for a nominal fee. I would say, the risk to lose in front of court is pretty high.

You could use one of the various passenger claim companies, they will look at the case and only go to court if they see they have a resonable chance to win. But if they win, they would get like a cut of the total compensation. Something between 25% of 33% typically.

Again, yes... unpleasant situation but totally avoidable by reviewing your travel documents before leaving the UK. It is obvious you had your doubts, as you said several times and also shown in the mail to the Travel Docs Department. And even though, not getting a satisfactory answer what steps to take, you decide to go on the trip without making sure you have the proper papers.

warakorn

What I find so curious in that storyline.

SÖP is writing:
I am not a native English-language speaker. However, it reads to me that both parents are Romanian citizens.
Frankly speaking - if this is true - at KIV all alarm-bells should have been started ringing when two parents (with Romanian EU passports) + their child (with a Russian passport) are appearing at the check-in desk in Republic of Moldova (which has both a troubling a history with Romania and Russia). This is aggravated by the fact that the Russian passport does not contain any visa, permit (whatsover, confirming a legal right to enter the UK).
In addition, two Romanian citizens are then starting to elaborate about some marriage certificate, which still needs to be certified in Russia ---> sorry it all raised suspicions.
Even as an underpaid contract agent I would have tended to deny this child boarding.

Another troubling statement from SÖP:I must say its quite a stunt from SÖP to claim being an expert in the citizenship laws of Russia and Romania in conjunction with Moldova. In that part of Europe citizenship rules are volatile, unclear, and complex.
Really, its not up to SÖP to come to such a conclusion. There is only one party who is allowed to make that conclusion: that is the relevant government authority of Romania. Apparently, they so far have denied confirming Romanian citizenship to this baby.

purch

You can say it as many times as you like, that doesn't make it true.

Timatic is simply a tool that LH chooses to use. They could also maintain their own database of immigration requirements but that wouldn't be practical. If LH denies boarding based on their choice to use a faulty tool, they should be on the hook for the compensation. The OP shouldn't have to take it up with the UK authorities as he had appropriate documentation and therefore wasn't technically in the wrong.

If you use a system to perform a task, and that system causes a mistake, you should do the right thing and pay the compensation. Simple.

Dr.Dre

Hmm, is it criminal to have two or three citizenships/passports? If that rings a bell to You - would You call police or Border Control? Especially if You feel that there are some problems with legality of documents/certificates. Maybe we are trying to smuggle innocent baby to UK.
Specifically for Moldova - more that 30% of population has double/triple citizenship. Legally. No one is surprised there with number of passports.

Please, show me the country in EU/World were children of named country has no right to be nationals of their parents by birth. If You are English, Your wife is English, surely Your kids are English (even if they are born in USA, like Boris Johnson). Now change English to French, Russian, Romanian or Moldavian.
Once we legalised our Russian Marriage certificate we obtained Romanian Birth Certificate for kid. So he is Romanian and Russian as well same time....

If you play on side of IATA/TIMATIC - you have two facts: 1) TIMATIC information is always right.
2) If TIMATIC is wrong - see point 1.

warakorn

You are missing my key argument that I have raised half a dozens of times now.

The TIMATIC tool was not faulty. Apparently the contract agent used it in the right way.
The underlying problem is the interpretation of the UK Government of the EU Law.
Again, I am 98% sure that the UK Home Office has instructed airlines to allow non-EU citizens (without a visa waiver) to only board with the aforementioned documents.

As said before, LH is not in the business of making fun by denying boarding. It acts on the stated requirements of the UK Government.

Timatic is just displaying what the UK government is demanding from the airlines/pax.
The UK Government might be right or wrong. This is, however, not the fault of LH.

That's an easy one (I have one directly from your neighbourhood; albeit the example is super-political, I just want to prove you wrong):
Dad (born in 1995 in Yalta) and Mom (born in 1997 in Lvov) live in Simferopol, Crimea. They get a child in the year 2020. What citizenship(s) will the child get?
Dad applied in 2015 for Russian citizenship, automatically loosing his Ukrainian citizenship. Mom has not applied and kept her Ukrainian passport. Ok, the Russian citizenship is easy. The child will get it granted automatically.
One thing I can tell you -> the Ukrainian government will make it super, super hard for the child to receive Ukrainian citizenship. Moreover, they cannot even get an Ukrainian passport in Crimea. Now, the dad is not allowed to Ukraine to sort out the citizenship of the child. He'll be arrested, when entering Ukraine. Mom can travel. It's super risky to take the child to the Ukraine. First of all trying to enter Ukraine with a Russian passport (of the child), which was issued in Crimea, is big big No Go! Secondly, because if the Ukraine is denying the citizenship claim or delaying it, the child is commiting a huge crime by returning this his home in Simferopol. All it takes is for the Ukrainian government to require physical presence of the dad, mom and child in Ukraine to sort out the papers. That's also a No Go for the dad.
As a Russian citizen (the child) it is strictly forbidden to enter Crimea (according to Ukrainian law). Let's assume the child gets Ukrainien citizenship granted (which I highly doubt), he will never be able to travel back to Ukraine without being arrested.

Apparently not! Romania has not granted/confirmed Romanian citizenship to your child. And knowing the history of Russia, Moldova and Romania, similar examples (as stated above) can be found there, as well.

Two Romanian citizen need to get their Russian marriage certificate certified in order to receive a Romanian birth certificate for the child -> I am no expert in Romanian citizenship law, but I doubt it.

Moreover, if the purpose of your trip to Moldova was to certify the marriage certificate, why did you take your child with you?

fassy

@Dr.Dre like said, sue LH. Let us know the outcome.

I bet, you won't see a dime from LH, some others favor a different ruling. But here in this forum you went get any more useful input as already delivered.

Jaenks

One more thing, Dad cannot enter to Ukraine as a Russian male citizen between 18-60 without a special invitation starting from end of 2018.
Everyone have a right to made their choice, Transnistrian Russians as Russian citizens vs. Moldavians as Romanian citizens but have to live with the consequences of modern world policy.
What I like about this thread posts is that posters have kept constructive conversations without going to personal insults like in many other threads, where mods had deleted too many posts. Despite that the politics,governments and airline are directly involved.

erik123

I would leave it. Citizenship issues are often Kafkaesk. Once your issue was resolved and decent compensation offered I would have quit. It will only cause additional stress and is unlikely to lead to any resolution/satisfaction. I have plenty of examples.

Dr.Dre

You are right, there are still a few crazy locations. Crimea one of them.

Here You are wrong. Once we registered Russian marriage in Roumania, we obtained Roumanian Birth Certificate for kid. Next step will be a Roumanian passport. That is the official pathway and that how we got a Roumanian passport for the eldest son. We are waiting kid number 3 within days, so will apply for 2 passports later this year.

I doubted as well, but here is from Roumanian consular services (google translation):

In the case of our Russian Marriage Certificate, it was just Russia or Roumania Central office.

Here is regarding application to register foreign/UK birth certificate to obtain Roumanian one for those who never resided in Roumania.




As You see the only way forward for us it was to travel to Roumania. But we have no one in Roumania there, so reading DIRECTIVE 2004/58/EC p 5 we bought tickets to Moldova. And again You were right regarding our grandparents in Moldova. So we landed in Moldova, I had a short trip with all documents to Bucharest and sorted Russian Marriage and UK Birth certificate in Bucuresti. Done and Dusted.

Why we travelled altogether? We are family, we are the EU family. We have this right to travel together. I don't think to go to Roumania instead of Moldova would exclude fully denial of boarding.

Practically - I heard a lot of very useful suggestions. We are really grateful to all of you.
Looks like LH and our side unlike will agree with SOP recommendations (especially they are not binding for LH). Can we complain in the UK CAA? Or the next step is just Court?

Thank You!

behuman

Dear Dr.Dre, of course as a EU family you should and can travel together. Romanians are part of our family and appreciated Europeans.

But may I suggest you a couple of things:
1. Forget about what happened, you recognized yourself that you took some risks with paperwork not yet up to date when traveling.
2. Instead focus on what might be difficult times ahead for us all who choose the UK as a place to live. Soon there will be no freedom of movement anymore between the EU and the UK.

And congratulations for your third child and welcome to FT, you landed a real killer thread for your start . Stay with us, one can learn a lot from FT - the best travel forum on the web!

Dr.Dre

Dear BeHuman why You are so pessimistic? I don't know Your UK status, but my family this year will have settlement UK-status and kid3 will be automatic UK citizen in addition to benefits of parents. So our family will keep enjoying free movement within the UK/EU at least.

I hope Your situation is at least good as ours!

PS Thank You for congratulations Kid3 somehow was present in time this unfortunate event with LH.

Dr.Dre

Dear neighbours.

I believe some of you could not sleep well waiting for any updates

First I have asked SOP about compensation and re-booking fees, here was the answer:
Dear Dr.Dre,
Thank you for your message.
Please allow me to clarify: We simply pointed it out to show that you did, in fact, pay to be rerouted. And your additional costs were factored into the recommendation: We recommended 2.050 GBP, which amounts to roundly four fifths of all possible claims (compensation payment according to Art. 7 regulation and reimbursement of rerouting fees: 2,400.00 EUR (~2,010.00 GBP) compensation payment and 563.34 GBP rerouting fees amounts to around 2,570.00 GBP in total. Four fifths of the total claim therefore amount to roundly 2,050.00 GBP. There are often residual doubts regarding immigration cases, as it is never possible to predict the exact decision of border police, and you yourself have mentioned border police told you that “they shall examine my documents in my presence”. We therefore recommended four fifths of all claims to take into account these residual doubts.

So I could not complain and accepted SOP recommendations.

55 min after our kid3 seen the sunlight we received a letter from SOP:
Dear Dr.Dre,
Thank you for your message dated 24 February 2020 in which you agree to our conciliation recommendation
Since both parties have agreed to the conciliation recommendation, it is now subject of a contractual agreement.
Further proceedings will now take place directly between you and the airline. The airline will contact you or directly make the payment and therefore you do not have to take any further steps. Please note that a possible financial transaction may take a few weeks.
Therefore, we consider the case as closed and thank you for the confidence you placed in the söp.

To my poor English, I understand that LH agreed with SOP. We shall just wait a couple of weeks until they contact us. I don't know if LH representatives reading this thread - the last thing to restore our belief in LH will be formal apologies for FRH event with my wife. If that happens - I would applaud to LH common sense and level of services.

Thank all of You!

PS Sorry if I quoted some of You wrongly.

Nick Art

I am very glad to hear that it all worked out.
In my opinion this outcome is the best we could have hoped for.

No further stress and worries regarding court and legal proceedings and yet an imho adequate compensation for your inconveniences.

hugolover

Well done. Now spend your time to get your child’s docs in order to enjoy trouble-free flying in the future.

warakorn

One question: have you physically received the 2,570.00 GBP?