Best Practices for Filing EC261/2004 ( EU 261 ) and UK 261 Claims Against United?
 

Appreciate any help as it relates to UK261.

was scheduled to depart LHR to EWR and received notice of cancellation while checking in bags. Had just received a flight text from United saying everything was on time. Very curious. In fact, Flight still shows on time on United’s website.

Nevertheless, they rebooked us on a flight leaving 2 hours later.

the form United gave me says they can limit their owed compensation because we will arrive less than 4 hours from original. But I don’t see that when I read UK 261.

what am I looking at? Do I just submit through United.com/feedback?

thanks.

According to sections 1c and 1d in the Wiki above, I’m pretty sure UK 261 compensation only kicks in for delays of 3 hours or more. Where are you seeing info that says 2 hours is sufficient?

well they told me the flight was cancelled. I heard it was maybe a bird strike on the arriving plane. They now apparently fixed the plane and it is going out on time. But I am still on my rescheduled flight since they told me it was cancelled.

I'm still curious about the 2 hours being enough for UK261 to kick in, though...any response to that question?

well my reading based on what the United rep told me is that this is a cancellation, not a delay. Maybe I’m reading the regulations differently.

Section 2 of the Wiki applies to cancellations, and I still think it's 3 hours or more...

that’s a fair reading though without the punctuation I read it as a delay of 3 hours, or a cancellation.

article 5 of 261 relates to cancellations while article 6 deals with delays.

article 5 says;


I could very well be wrong, but I’m not sure what I can submit since a United actually fixed the plane in time and it left on time so there is no record it was “cancelled.”

Yeah, that part probably does complicate the issue. I'm sure United has some sort of record, even if you don't, though. How long were you delayed overall upon arrival (not departure)?

Need to read all the Articles to understand full context of the statement on the information sheet you were given (these are pretty standardized). Anyways to explain it: article 5 incorporates article 7. Which article 7 spells out compensation amounts, but also has a subsection that indicates the amounts can be reduced by 50% if the airline gets you there within specified time frames depending on flight distance (max of 4 hours). So the statement of "can limit their owed compensation because we will arrive less than 4 hours from original." doesn't mean no compensation, but a lesser amount than prescribed. ie. they've limited their liability to the lesser amount spelled out in article 7 because you've arrived within 4 hours.

The other issue you have is the flight isn't actually cancelled now, While UA would certainly have all the internal notes, both what was sent to you/other passengers, as well as what was originally going on with the plane that led to a possible cancellation, it is a gray area that the regulation doesn't account for - a flight being cancelled then actually operating. By the definitions in article 1 this does not meet the requirements for being a cancellation: '"cancellation" means the non-operation of a flight which was previously planned and on which at least one place was reserved.'

It's up to you whether you want to submit a claim, worst case is they deny it. At which point you can decide how much effort it is worth to you to try and push the issue given the ambiguity in the regulation for this situation. Though the definition of "cancellation" would seem UA would be in the right if they chose to deny the claim. If you do submit the claim, keep it simple, "you notified me my flight was cancelled and moved me to a later flight that arrived # hours later. At some time later, it appears that flight still operated despite my notification that it was cancelled, but I was not moved back to it. Given this circumstance I'm requesting compensation under the UK261 regulation for arriving # hours later after a flight was cancelled within 7 days".

Well in the discussion with UA, I suggest you tell them about this verdict:

European Court of Justice on April 7, 2022 in the case of the European Union vs. United Airlines Case C-561/20

This was a a major milestone to get a US carriers objections thrown out by the hightest court.

A link for those interested: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-cont...CJ0561&from=EN

This isn't a surprising ruling in line with the court's previous precedents. I wonder if we'll see UA start to increase its minimum connection times to try to reduce the number of affected flights.

That doesn't change the fact we don't see passengers posting on FT US airlines forums getting paid EU compensation for delayed connections when the international flight arrived on time regardless of that case. If UA and other US airlines continue to not pay on delayed connections - it isn't a milestone at all.

Until the EU regulatory members have an appetite to fine US airlines (and I've seen no indication that they do) I wouldn't count in delayed connection compensation.

Not worth the loss of connectivity or network efficiency, given the lack of broad teeth on 261 generally.

As EU based, I can pursue this in court in my hometown. However in my most recent case, UA is not even challenging this topic:

So they are very much aware of the risks.In this case it was a flight AMS-IAH-SCL with a 14 hours delay due to a mechanical issue.

Was the mechanical delay on AMS-IAH, or IAH-SCL?