Condor - Downgrade EU261/2004
 

Purchased a round trip ticket Yhz-Fra-Yhz on Condor in business class for 2 pax. Tickets purchased on condor.com for cash. No LH M&M status.

Flight DE2414 on 12 July was operated by a Condor 767 (D-ABUT) which according to records is new to their fleet.

http://www.airfleets.net/ficheapp/plane-b767-29383.htm

It was a condor aircraft and crew but the inside has not been reconfigured yet. No IFE (they showed ice age on the projection screen!) and no business class.

At T-24 hours I did online checkin and noticed that my seats had changed from 2DG to 4AC. Website did not offer a seat map to change. Immediately called call centre. Boarding pass generated via online checkin still showed business class. Call centre claimed they could not see seat map and only available option was to esquire at airport regarding different seats.

Arrive at airport at T-3 hours. Informed there was an aircraft change and plane has no business class. Not offered any options except 2 seats in premium economy. Agent unable to tell us pitch, width or aircraft type. Since it was those seats or swim we flew them. Get on plane and quickly realize this is a "new to confirm" plane they haven't bothered to reconfigure yet.

Seems pretty clear that EU261/2004 applies for a downgrade. Flight is well over 3500 km so looking for a 75% refund. My questions for the experts:

1. Has it ever been resolved if the treaty means 75% of the round trip price or 75% of the one way (say half the ticket) price?

2. I see that condor must pay me within 7 days. Does that happen automatically?

3. Do I need to tell condor I am aware of my treaty rights?

4. They gave me a form saying basically we are sorry. Send this in and we will refund the fare difference between business and premium economy. Seems like I want to not sign that form?

Any advice?

Thanks in advance.

I would expect the 75% to be of the flight segments you were downgraded, check what is the fare difference first, as it might just be more than 75%, depends on which booking class in Y they will use for the calculation.

I doubt they will pay anything automatically. They will probably insist on paying the fare difference, calculated by them to their advantage.

I was on the same flight, but was moved to Seat 1K and 1H just before boarding, which are very ancient non working wider seats normally used for Crew rest on long flights.

We paid 780€ one way for the C tickets, if I recall correctly the PE price was 500+ and Y was 400+, so a refund for the difference will be insufficient. My working assumption is that I have to go all the way threatening and possibly beginning court proceedings.

This was my first and last flight on DE, so I have no experience with claims of this nature with them.

Agree to the first and last flight with DE. The direct routing to YHZ was nice but next time we're going via YUL or YYZ.

Even for an airline like condor this aircraft was an unexpected low.

Sent in my compensation request. Hope to get 75% of 50% of the ticket without too much fuss. Will post here with how it ends up.

Compensation was offered, but not yet received, @ 75% of the fare. They excluded their taxes, fuel surcharges etc. so effectively ended up being closer to 60% of the fare

They can only exclude 75% of the fuel surcharges if the Y and J surcharge is identical. If not, as it usually isn't with LH group you are also due a refund of that. It's great how they consider fuel surcharges part of the fare when you have a non-refundable ticket but want to treat it as a fee when they owe you the fare back.

Still waiting to hear on my complaint. Condor call centre says it will be up to 8 weeks from date of submission.

Thanks for the advice on fuel surcharges; I will look them up to see if they are the same in Y and J.

To close the loop on this. Received my reply which provided compensation on 28 Sept. Sent in request 15 July.

Compensation was a bit lower, approx $30, than I calculated and I suspect they are excluding some fee or tax but can't be bothered to figure it out and hassle them further.

All in all - the condor experience has made me more apreciative of Air Canada.

Had a downgrade from J to PE today on Condor's FRA-PDX; they substituted one of those 767s with the smaller J cabin and dumped a whole bunch of passengers (12?) behind the curtain.

Got form offering fare difference. I don't understand how this is compliant with EU regulations; aren't they required to provide passenger rights information at checkin or gate? Needless to say I encouraged fellow affected travelers to research their rights and not just accept the fare difference.

Don't think I am interested in waiting 2 months for a refund (in what form do they issue the refund?). Has anyone initiated a credit card chargeback for a downgrade without timely refund based on product delivered wasn't product sold?

They must refund you 75% of your cost of that sector excluding taxes. EU261/2004 requires them to inform passengers of their rights but they never do. If challenged they will point you to some obscure corner of their website.

Request your refund in writing and explicitly mention EU261/2004 and be prepared to get the runaround. Stick at it and they will pay.

Is there a way, after the fact, to get the fare components? My trip included one short AS (Horizon) segment into/out of PDX on the same itinerary. The Condor booking confirmation breaks out the total tax and the total airfare, but not any details on the various flight segments.

Based on a mock booking for later this month I can get the exact same flights for nearly the exact price I paid (off by $3). If I mock-book that trip and look at the outbound and return costs (minus tax/fees) and then mock-book just the Condor segments, I can determine that the AS segments each add about $66.

So with that information I can calculate a 75% refund of about $930.

My concern is that Condor will dispute that math and come up with their own calculation that shows the fare for the downgraded business class segment was a lot less and the not affected AS segment some ridiculous number.

Don't argue with these id**** - sue them!

No arguing or suing necessary; they paid the amount I calculated without any issues. ^

75% of the fuel surcharges have to be refunded, as well.

What fuel surcharge? Condor's website doesn't show any.

It shows a base fare plus taxes/fees that add up to the amount I paid.

E.g., for a roundtrip PDX-FRA-PDX these are the taxes/fees:

German Aviation Tax /​ charges (LUFST)US$ 58.50
Airport Security Charge (DEDE)US$ 10.60
Passenger Service Charge (DERA)US$ 38.93
Transportation Tax (USUS)US$ 18.00
APHIS User Fee - Passengers (USXA)US$ 3.96
Immigration User Fee (USXY)US$ 7.00
Customs User Fee (USYC)US$ 5.50

In my request I took the base fare and applied 75% to it.