mikynux

Hello! Maybe you can help. I booked a flight trip with Kiwi. There is one stopover and it uses 2 differents flights/company.
They warned very clearly I have to do the stopover myself, flights are not connected, and if first flight is late and I miss the second flight, it is not at all their responsability. At least it's clear. But is this legal for european customers?
How should I have done if I wanted this is considered as a complete trip, and whatever happens to the first flight, they have to find a solution?
Thank you for your help.

SK AAR

You should have booked with another OTA than Kiwi.

Now you have to hope and pray that the first flight is not delayed or cancel.

If you miss the second flight (on the separate ticket) you need to rebook this flight or buy a new ticket if cheaper. Kiwi or the airlines will most likely not help you,

fuyao

Is the flight within the EU, with a EU carrier or a flight from the EU?
Then EU261 applies
ECJ ruled, if a booking is sold as 1, even if its with 2 airlines as split tickets, its considered as 1 ticket under EU261

SK AAR

Good luck with that! And with whom do the liability rest in your opinion? The OTA (Kiwi) has no responsibility under EU Reg. 261/04 and the first carrier has only sold a ticket, A to B and not A-B-C and will most likely have no knowledge of the second ticket B-C. The same applies to the second carrier who have sold the ticket B-C and has nothing to do with ticket A-B.

fuyao

Correct, the airlines do not know of the other tickets.
But the consumer doesn't know that, its not the consumers job to know IATA regulations.
The consumer bought a ticket from A via B (with airline X) to C (with airline Y). If Airline X decides to cancel / delay the flight, then under ECJ ruling has to accommodate the pax to the final destination. If the airlines do not allow that, they can simply deny kiwi to issue tickets.
btw thats why kiwi.com is blacklisted by AF/KL and AF/KL regulations say, anyone doing business with kiwi.com is not allowed to sell AF/KL tickets.

ECJ rulings are consumer friendly, thats why airlines like EW where they only operated the flight from DUS to LHR had to reaccomoodate a pax to his final destination in Asia after they cancelled only the short haul flight even though they had no knowledge of the other segments since it was a kiwi.com split booking.

ECJ ruled, its the airlines obligation, not the consumer's one to understand the industry and if airlines do not want to have split tickets allowed, they can simply forbide and penalize it to the (O)TA.

ECJ has also ruled, since EU261 is not clear no what a confirmed booking is, that any paper that says 'booking confirmation' / 'flight confirmation' is equal to an eticket receipt, so if an OTA sends you an email saying the flights are confirmed (even though its just an unticketed reservation yet), it holds the same value as a issued ticket.

SK AAR

Your views are not in line with the recent court ruling from the Danish High Court, matter BS 4936/2023 of 17 January 2024 where claims for refund of Ryanair tickets (tickets cancelled due to Covid-19) purchased on Kiwi.com, were dismissed for the flights outside Denmark. Pax had purchased tickets on Kiwi.com from CPH to Faro (via CRL/Brussels) and return FAO-CPH via STN. All flights operated by FR. FR refused the refund and court proceedings were commenced for all 4 flights in Denmark. The High Court ruled that as Kiwi was not an authorized agent of FR and with no cooperation agreement with FR, pax had purchased 4 individual/separate FR tickets and consequently there was no venue in Denmark for CRL-FAO and the FAO-STN tickets. The High Court considered various ECJ judgments without finding any convincing arguments to reject the fact that these were sold by FR as separate tickets. The court found that no ticket had been issued as it appeared from the Kiwi reservation/receipt that there were 4 different reservation numbers and that pax would have to collect checked luggage at CRL and STN for recheck + boarding pass for the subsequent flights had not been issued at CPH or FAO.

I would expect the courts of other countries to follow this logic and sensible approach when Kiwi has no authorisation to sell these tickets as through/combined tickets.