airoli

Read post #3 @:-)

Marco1981

all flights were operated by swiss, but cancelled.
then they gave us a flight transfer to frankfurt and another to shanghai / madrid operated by lufthansa

Often1

Bottom line is that you need to figure out whether your claims agent sued LX and lost or simply have up sending nasty letters. If your chosen agent, lawyer, sued and lost, you then can't go out and sue again. But, if all the firm did was send nasty letters, you are free to sue LX.

But, before you waste time, effort, and money, you should consider that lawyers you hired only get paid if they win. They have no incentive to give up unless they don't believe they can win. Perhaps they were wrong and you are right. But, the firms that do this are specialists and it is unlikely that you know more.

thbe

Don‘t worry to contact FOCA. There is no risk for you involved as long as you report true facts. Just be careful to report things as ‚I know‘, which you don‘t know.

Btw: Maybe your claims got time-barred already. But you should not hesitate to report to FOCA because of that.

Marco1981

No, they didn't sue them
The case was passed on to the specified lawyer's office for an exact audit of the prospects of success of a court action. They said that The lawyers have examined my case thoroughly and have come to the conclusion that a claim enforcement is not advised.

I think I will go on with FOCA and see what's going on.

flyasia

Just curious, maybe I'm missing something.
Why do you say that the airline owes you something? As I understand you were given an alternative flight albeit with a delay.

I understand that you can, under certain conditions, claim for any delay above x number of hours. But after 2 years, why would you spend so much time on this. Did you actually lose money? Did you have expenses? Have you considered the opportunity cost of spending so much time on this?

fassy

I would say that statement should make t pretty clear you won’t get anywhere. If a specialized claim agency wasn’t able to get the compensation and their lawyers think the case probably will not be won if taken to court... then most probably there you do not have any chance of getting compensated.

if the flights were not canceled due to weather delays there is a good chance the Chinese ATC issued air corridor restrictions which forced Swiss to cancel. Happens quite a lot in China when the military does fun stuff That would be also considered out of the airlines control and no compensation would be due.

Dlougach

I think in this case in makes sense to complain to FOCA just to learn what actual reason of cancellation was, because this practice of not telling the customers the reasons for cancellation is definitely very dirty.

Marco1981

Dear all,

FOCA told me they are no more in the position to open an administrative penal procedure against the air carrier as the administrative penal procedure act states a statutory limitation of 2 years.
So nothing. They told me I am free to to address the competent civil court, but I am not sure: Do you know which Civil Court should I contact?

In any case I think I might give up, even if it is frustrating since they cancelled 2 flights for 2 people.

Thanks a lot for all your support!

Marco1981

PS. Do you know something about Alternative dispute resolution (ADR)? This is their website: https://soep-online.de/request-form-flight.html

I read I can ask for a resolution through them...

warakorn

You should not get involved with this alternative dispute resolution process, esp. not from SOEP.

I have applied three times for this dispute resolution with SOEP. In all three cases the SOEP ruled in my favour. However, the airlines refused to honor the decision by the SOEP dispute resolution judge.

It's a waste of time.

Marco1981

Dear Warakon,

Thanks a lot for your message.
Foca confirmed they don't manage cases older than 2 years.
I have contacted the Spanish authority and they told me to work with FOCA.

So after all, only thing I have left is write a letter from my lawyer, wait for answer, and then open a case to a Civil Court. What do you think?

In any case, for sure, I am not going to fly anymore with them.

Thanks!

SK AAR

I think you are crazy wasting more time of yours on this. Why do you think you have a claim when qualified lawyer(s) have reviewed your case and concluded that it is not worth to pursue? You simply don't give up and do not acknowledge that others with different opinions than yours may be right? This is insane...

Could someone please close this thread?

mauro1855

I don't agree with this last post.
The user put the case with a profit-driven agency who got "advised not to pursue the case" - that doesn't mean the case is unwinnable, it just means that it might be more difficult or time/resource consuming than usual and so not worth it for the agency to pursue, because while they pursue this "difficult" case, they might have other cases that are way easier and more profitable. It's all a question of resource allocation - why put a lawyer working many days on a difficult claim, when in the same ammount of time you can put the same lawyer working in multiple other easier claims that would probably give more profit?
We don't know if this was an agency refusing work because it wouldn't be very profitable or easy, or really a true assessment that the case is not winnable.

Heck, so far we don't even know what was the reason LX cancelled the flights. There is a big void of information, how can someone make a decision without knowing at least why the flights were cancelled?!

I'm new here, but I know for the frequent flyers here the 2400€ compensation the user mentioned might not seems like a lot of money, but depending on where you live, 2400€ can in fact be a fair ammount of money.

That being said, I think the user should at least find out why the flights were cancelled, and then take it from there......... unless the cost of the lawyer will outway the profit, in which case I would obviously advise to drop it.

I don't know about you guys, but I'm curious to find out what happens.