krys_k

Perhaps someone can offer some advise - My wife took a flight (LX1348 on 07th August 2014) and she's been to-ing and fro-ing with Swiss, on and off, since then. Their latest response in denying the compensation is:

An aircraft is a complex, mechanical and electronic system, whose flawless performance is of utmost priority for SWISS. Nevertheless, unforeseeable and unavoidable defects sometimes occur. As this is considered and extraordinary circumstance, I regret to inform you that you are not eligible for compensation.

My wife has been tried to find out what the "extraordinary circumstance" is, but they are not telling her. Seems that they have decided on her behalf, without giving any details, that there is no compensation to pay, without providing evidence.

Am wondering, if there is any way to find out what the "extraordinary circumstance" was, and whether compensation as a result, is not due.

Many thanks in advance.

chris63

LX don’t like to pay out on EU 261 compensation, period.
It helps if you provide further information, what was the delay ?
Routing ZRH -WAW is covered in the regulations

ekxdqszkj

I got pretty much the same response from Swiss to deny the compensation and I didn't wanna pay 25% fee to third party companies, so I filed a complaint to FOCA and I waited for a month but no response from Swiss. So I filed a complaint again, then they finally responded and agreed to the compensation, so I gave them my bank account info. Then I had to wait for about 6 months for the money to be deposited into my bank account. So yeah, around 10 months in total fighting with Swiss for EU261, but I got back 1200EUR back finally.

krys_k

Thanks for responses.

chris63 - there was no reason given for the delay at the time. And Swiss are not giving any retrospective reasons for delay in their responses. As such, have no idea what the delay is. So, it could be a perfectly valid reason that overrides EU 261. Or not!

chris63

Fine, if they won’t provide the precise reason tell them it’s not extraordinary & they must pay up

But your still not providing us with the details to help you, what was the delay & did they provide any duty of care ?

Often1

If this was ZRH-WAW as it is today (all you've given us is a flight number from over five years ago, then the problem you face is that while Switzerland is not a Member State, it has adotped EC 261/2004 into its domestic law. However, it is not bound by the decisions of the CJEU and its courts look to the original language of the Regulation, not what it has become over time through the precedent of other nations.

While the statement in the OP would be a virtual admission of a non-extraordinary circumstance for an EU carrier or departure from EU, not so for LX or a departure from Switzerland.

Presuming that the time delay was sufficient, a critical fact missing from the OP, this is going to be a very, very tough case for OP to prevail and it is unlikely that one of the claims agencies will take it on.

flymexico2010

Just saw that my flight is delayed today by almost 6 hours.
In this case because I know that this is because of LH strike should it not be an issue to get the compensation right? In which form and how fast is this compensation handled after sending the email with the claim?

jay526

As mentioned, LX doesn't like to pay EU261 claims. I had no luck trying to get them to admit it myself and wound up using a third party service, which handled the claim in less than a week (with payment already processed) after I had failed to get LX to act.

chris63

That’s very fast for an agency, which one did you use ?

chris63

This is the LX forum
The reason should not be strike related because for LH mainline who would operate that flight, the strike was called off.

Your inbound from MUC to MEX did not leave as planned at 22.30 but 08.06 the next Morning.

LH claims are usually rejected in the first instance, so expect the need to be persistent, it can also take many weeks for them to respond but they will eventually, payment is usually by Bank transfer.

athome

I am doubting any agency will take your case or any court will judge in your favor. The reason is not, wether your claim is founded or not. The reason is that you start first legal actions 5 years and 3 months after the incident. The limitation period of such claims is well below 5 years.

nancypants

I’m reading the OP as Swiss claiming the delay was caused by a mechanical issue

(someone will explain better but)...
my understanding is the original text of EU261 didn’t class mechanical issues as non-extraordinary; this has subsequently been challenged in court and now the bulk of mechanical claims are considered non-extraordinary within the EU

Swiss is not an EU carrier and Switzerland is not an EU member state. As such they have made an active choice as a country/organisation to accept EU261 as orginally written, but not any subsequent case law. This means that Swiss (usually) is not on the hook for for compensation for mechanical- it’s not really them flouting the law, it’s just the nature of the unusual arrangement with Switzerland and the EU

i say “usually” because if the flight is from the EU to Switzerland, the regulation applies in full including case law, regardless of the operating headquarters of the airline

on the face of it, if this was ZRH-WAW and was mechanical, I would be managing my expectations and not wasting too much of my time on it

krys_k

Thanks all for your responses.
(BTW - delay was 4.5h)

jay526

Responding late here - I used AirHelp. I had already initially exchanged emails with Swiss on this already and had all my documentation, so it's possible that I had a better experience as a result.

fridgy

Hi guys,
i have read a lot of threads on the internet last night and im still VERY much confused in my case.
on my flight back from Maldives (original routing: MLE-ZRH-PRG) our flight was late so i missed my last flight to PRG and was rebooked via FRA. (arrived 3 hours and 31 mins late)
Even the boarding was delayed and started 10mins before the STD. (scheduled time of departure) At the time of STD we were still at the gate and when we got to the plane, we were annoucned that the plane is still being loaded and they have some paperworks to be done. After apx. 45mins later after STD. they closed the doors and then captain annoucened that the airport is busy today so we will be waiting for a few more minutes.

I am kinda of confused, is the reason of delay acceptable for EU261 and also the fact that Edelweiss is not EU carrier and the flight was from outside of EU into Switzerland?
Thank you for info