EU clarify flight delay compensation rules
20.11.09
A European Court decision has confirmed that airlines must compensate travellers for long flight delays. The ruling will require airlines in the European Union to compensate victims of delays of more than three hours for which they are responsible.
The ruling came in a judgment clarifying a five-year-old EU regulation which grants flat-rate compensation for cancelled flights of between €250 and €600 (£223 to £535). The judges said that regulation did not expressly provide that passengers whose flights are delayed also have such a right.
Passengers who are forced to wait three hours or more will be compensated €600, the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg decided yesterday. This is the same as if their flight had been cancelled. Airlines will also be required not to cancel a flight unless it fits strict criteria set down in the new law.
The ruling stated: ‘Passengers on a flight which is cancelled at short notice have a right to compensation, even when they are re-routed by the airline on another flight, if they lose three hours or more in relation to the duration originally planned.’
The judges said that a technical problem with an aircraft could not be regarded as an ‘extraordinary circumstance’, unless the problem stemmed from events that ‘by their nature or origin are not inherent in the normal exercise of the activity of the airline concerned and are beyond its actual control’.
Add to: del.icio.us | Digg it | Newsvine | NowPublic | Reddit
To book gatwick airport hotel or gatwick airport car park at the lowest price, click on these links to two great gatwick parking and gatwick hotels price comparison pages.
