Compensation for delay
A recent ruling by the European Court of Justice decided that the compensation payments for cancelled flights should apply also to delays over three hours, if the cause ‘could have been avoided’
OK, consider this scenario. A fully-booked 747 is about to depart when a service truck operated by a third-party handling agent makes contact with the control surfaces on the wing. A full and lengthy inspection reveals no damage and the aircraft is ready to leave two hours late – but ATC do not have a slot for it for a further 30 minutes. But by then the crew do not have the hours to operate the sector and a relief crew have to be called out and the flight leaves 3h30 late.
So the passengers claim compensation, at the EU long-haul rate of €600. That’s just about a quarter of a million Euros for the plane-full. Hang on – the return flight is also fully booked and also delayed, so now we’re talking about a half a million compensation liability for the round trip. The ‘cause’ of the problem – negligence by a third-party handler, could very well be regarded by the National Enforcement Body (and eventually the courts) as bringing it within the scope of the EU ruling.
So – the airline pays out half a million and immediately starts proceedings to get it back from – whom? The third-party handler? But they were responsible for only two hours of the delay. ATC? – the reason for the slot delay might or might not have been due to a deficiency on their part, but they still didn’t take the delay beyond three hours, it was a duty time regulation that did that.
Whether or not the passengers eventually get their compensation there is one thing you can be sure of – by the end of the process a lot of money will have flowed out of the aviation value chain (airline … groundhandler … ATC) and into the pockets of various lawyers.