StuMcIlwain

Agreed. The European courts have been very clear that aircraft delays as a result of a late inbound do not get the airline out of paying EU compensation. Do a google search and try citing one of the previous legal cases when you reply to United.

If this gets you nowhere, go to a third party collector.

Silver Fox

In my EU261 battle they would not say "extraordinary circumstances" and kept saying it was "outside of United's control". I had to apply matchsticks under their fingernails to get them to use the word "extraordinary".

Often1

No, they have not.

What might be an "extraordinary circumstance" at BCN would not be at FRA, a major hub. OP may certainly refer this to one of the claims agencies, but finding one which takes claims for departures from Spain may be quite a challenge.

If you do proceed, the sole questions are:
1. What was the length of the delay as measured at SFO from originally scheduled to actual.
2. Were there extraordinary circumstances causing the delay.

The rest of the story is irrelevant and will only confuse the issue. EC 261/2004 claims exceeding 3-4 short declarative sentences do themselves no favor.

Don't go out and spend the EUR 600 quite yet.

SeamusSA

IME, UA will stonewall and spew carefully chosen language to avoid incriminating themselves while denying EC261 compensation, ultimately leading to a ."kiss off" message in which they assert the "matter is closed." Much like the health insurance industry, they know that a significant portion of claimants will grumble and moan but not pursue further. That's what I did on previous occasions but this time decided to persist. I tried every possible route before finally going to a third party. Matter is currently in process. I looked at several, chose to go with flightright.com as they were recommended by several sources.

TCKFlier

A colleague recently experienced an unusual situation...flight was London-Houston-Orange County, all on United Airlines. Flight left LHR on time, and landed on schedule, but was held approximately 90 minutes on the ground, because there was a fuel spill and the gate was not empty... This meant that she missed the last flight to SNA... As such, she was rebooked on the first flight for the following day, given hotel and food vouchers... End of story, she arrived 14 hours later than scheduled...

United is claiming that since she arrived at the gate 65 minutes after the schedule in Houston, she is not eligible. Is UA right? If not, can someone point me to the specific point in the regulations?

Thanks!

WineCountryUA

Question
Was the individual on a single ticket or separate tickets?

The fuel spill -- by whom? Was the entire airport affected? Did the airport authorities "close operations?"
This might be considered an extraordinary event, exempting the airlines. This is the first time in my flight history to have heard of such an event.

TCKFlier

Single ticket... the fuel spill was on the fueling of the prior plane, and they had to clean that up before the inbound plane could park... First time I've heard of it too...

aacharya

Wegener proves UA wrong. But they (and many other airlines) have not been quick to adopt this. They will fight these out unless you claim in EU courts (or use a company).

threeoh

No, United is wrong. They may be right that this is an extraordinary circumstance, but they are wrong that it's arrival time in Houston that matters. It's arrival time at your final destination.

Unfortunately there is not a "regulation" other than the original text of EC261, but if you google the Wegener court case, that is the case that is relevant, saying that missed connections outside of the EU are still covered.

Double unfortunately, United likes to stonewall / drag its feet / outright refuse to pay out when there is any ambiguity (see plenty of reports on this thread). Your options then are (a) file a lawsuit in the country you flew from (b) contact a regulator in the country you flew from who usually have no enforcement authority but can possibly mediate and (c) hire a third-party commission-based company to sue on your behalf.

aacharya

Actually, the case cited above reconfirms Wegener (even though the nuance of the case denoted who should pay).

By today’s judgment, the Court states, first, that a flight with one or more connections which is the subject of a single reservation constitutes a whole for the purposes of the right of passengers to compensation provided for in the regulation on the rights of air passengers.2 Accordingly, connecting flights of which the first flight was performed from an airport located in the territory of a Member State, in this case Prague, fall within the scope of that regulation even if the second of those connecting flights was performed by a non-Community carrier from and to a country which is not an EU Member State

IADFlyerguy

In a more prosaic situation, my United flight out of CDG to IAD was cancelled due to a technical problem with the onboard AC. Technicians worked to fix it and we pushed out and taxied only to discover that the AC wasn't really fixed. Technician came out to the stopped plane on the tarmac and then after 90 minutes sitting there, United cancelled its flight and said we would have to come back next day--no further UA outbound flights to the US that day be redirected to.

We were put up in a nearby hotel overnight and got meals. The check for $674 arrived about 10 days later.

UA scheduled an extra flight to IAD next day because the usual flight was already full.

By the time we arrived in IAD that next day, we had an apology from UA and were told they had added 10K miles to our accounts "for the trouble."

Nevertheless I filed the EU261 form with UA, and based on feedback above, expected to wait a while for an answer.

To my surprise, I got a reply in two hours offering me a check for the USD equivalent of €600 compensation, or alternatively 27,500 Mileage Plus miles or a credit of $900 (valid for one year) against a future UA booking.

I took the cash and my spouse went for the miles. This was an easy get!

mmthomps

Hi, you refer to "the EU261 form." On the United site, it says "To make a claim for compensation, please contact United Customer Care online at: united.com/feedback." There's nothing specific under "feedback" regarding the EC261 claim, so far as I can tell. Do you know where/what you actually submitted? Thanks.

Aussienarelle

I have usually claimed under "Other" and provided the flight details - scheduled and actual - and United then contacts me to offer me ETC instead of cash. 50% of the time I have gone for cash (which is generally lower than the ETCs) and 50% with ETCs. Have had a number of comp claims with United and OALs. My next flight to Europe is November but to the UK when the UK is likely no longer a member of the EU...wonder if that will impact the mix of LHR and CDG, FRA, AMS, MUC flights by United.

If I were a non-EU airline think I would be trying to route more flights through LHR/MAN where I would not have to pay mandated compensation for delayed/cancelled flights.

Will be interested to see what happens.

jsloan

It wouldn't work. Wegener has expanded airlines' liability to connecting flights, worldwide, that begin in the EU.

If I were a non-EU airline, I'd stop selling connecting flights from Europe.

threeoh

The amount they lose from paying 600 EUR to people who know about the regulation and about Wegener and are willing to fight for it is (apparently) way less than they make by selling connecting tickets from Europe.