LONDON CITY - 2

[virginblue]

I also fully appreciate your background and understand the different angle from which you are looking at the issue.

Although I have a legal background, for me it is always a simple business case. I would not waste amount X of my time for going after an amount Y of refund/damages etc. because almost every time the figures simply do not add up. As a matter of principle, I could have taken up some issues with airlines a couple of times, but I never did because I could not be bothered less. But this was an informed decision.

I tend to look at these issues somewhat more critical when I get the feeling that customers are treated like idiots because of an airline's SOP of using unenforcable small print, giving misleading information to complaining customers and refusing to deal with hiccups seriously. This even more so because airlines more than often cannot be bothered less if there is a problem at the customer side of the contract. While a lot of airlines expect customers to be understanding when the airline screws up, they simply follow the lawbook (or their small print) when the customer hopes for some understanding.


As for your example with the admin fee, I am still awaiting a court case on this. While airlines are indeed free to charge an admin fee, this admin fee must be reasonable, i.e. cover real costs incurred by the airline, and must not be just a figure taken out of the blue sky that is a mere deterrent. The 50 EUR admin fee I mentioned above for a bouncing online payment was small print of Germanwings until recently and it got trashed in court as unreasonable. Because of the reasonableness test, German LCCs do not charge an admin fee or limit it to 5 EUR when it comes to refunding taxes and fees. They are apparently quite aware of the legal ramnifications and do not want to be taken to court as this would result in a lot of unwanted publicity, i.e. make a lot people aware of the fact that fees have to be refunded.

The other example you gave is the good old force majeure card played by airlines more than often. If it is indeed force majeure, the airline gets off the hook, of course. However, scheduling, maintenance, being short of aircraft or crew, a contractor screwing up etc. is not force majeure, but a shortcoming in the airline's organization. Tough luck or maybe even unfair, but this is simply a question of risk distribution between two parties of a contract. The simple rule is if you cannot be sure to be able to meet your contractual obligations, do not enter into a contract. If you still do, that is fine but this is your risk, not the other party's. After all, if a customer wants to gamble, there are cheaper ways to do that than buying an airline ticket.

Btw, recently there was a funny case involving Lufthansa which had played the force majeure card after a flight cancellation. Because of the rules on evidence in place and a well-infromed claimant, they were forced to hand in their maintenance records - and to their surprise the claimant was an air force pilot who knew what he was talking about. He was able to demonstrate that the "maintenance issue" was rather minor and not a "no go" as Lufthansa had said earlier in the dispute. The jusge was not amused and so a red-faced Lufthansa had to cough up dough big time.