HeartyMeatballs. I am very cynical so I think two things:

1. Some aircrew WILL feel pressured into departing with something (small) adrift. We are human beings.
2. I don't think it was the boys in BRU who thought this one up by themselves. I have always thought that the legacy carriers wanted it as they thought it might level the field with regards to those on two single tickets, as opposed to them with linked through flights. It may have backfired somewhat ...
3. I reckon that many have been surprised at the success of FR (once again) turning it around by levelling the tax and profiting HUGELY from that.
4. I reckon that many have been surprised at the continuing demand for service in /across Europe that has become an enormous barrier due to volume and the inability of Euro nations to harmonise their act. (also know as getting their $hit together) For THAT you can blame the folks in BRU.

Well the thing is we are all paying for it in higher airfares. The difference with FR is that they tell you up front and don't just raise the fares.

The only beneficiaries here are the bottom feeding ambulance chacers. Certainly not the passenger nor safety standards.

Friends of mine who recently gained EU261 payback certainly liked it.

Meatballs - is it wrong to expect someone selling you a service to actually perform as advertised?

If Ford sold you a car with only three wheels you'd be pretty unhappy - why should airlines be any different?? They take our cash and then don't perform..........

Flight International mentioned back when 261 was introduced that the Regulation was adopted because an EU bureaucrat was frustrated to being dump on his Sunday evening flights to Brussels as overbooked.

HeartyMeatballs, very logical comments on who pays the cost of compensation.

If I pay someone £500 to paint all of the doors in my house, and he turns up late, I don't demand he pay me £2000 compensation. If paints 9 doors but he misses on door off I similarly don't expect £2000 compensation.

If I pay an airline €40 and it delivers the product, only 3+ hours late, somehow I am to expect ten times what I paid for the ticket back in compensation even though the airline did what I paid it to do - and get me from A to B.

I'd expect some reasonable remedy. I'd certainly knock £50 off what I pay my painter. I would not expect him to then pay me £2000 when he has in fact delivered most of what he was contracted to do.

If Ford told you your car would be delivered on Friday and it didn't turn up until the Monday, should you expect many times what you paid for the car back in compensation? After all they still provided you with a car which they've paid to produce only later than planned.

A reasonable refund or compensation for example a percent gage back or vouchers is reasonable. I don't think people are deserving of hundreds of euro just for being a few hours late.

I'm just waiting for weather to be claimable. Then just see where safety standards go. That CB on approach? Just buckle up and hope for the best. That little bit of frost on the wing? Let's not wait for the de-icer as there's a two hour wait (this really does happen). Let's just hope it'll blow off or maybe we will taxi close behind the traffic in front to see if their jet blast will melt it off.

I work for one of the most financially secure airlines in the world. We have no pressure to depart when it is not safe to do so. If I worked for a smaller outfit or one that wasn't as secure then there is a risk that corners will be cut.

When it did happen no compensation was due for delays.

Also in your examples a door not painted, or a car not deliver when it is due have (in general) less severe consequences or are more easily managed than a pax stranded due to an airline's fault away from home and having to cope with hotels and various expenses.

It isn't just pilots under pressure.
Dispatchers and engineers are all being pressurised to avoid delays.
See how much compensation you get when the aircraft takes off out of trim due to incorrect loading or a hastily signed off tech problem, and piles in over the threshold.

This will all end in tears.

RWY in sight. It does have serious consequences when cars are delayed. How else am I supposed to gets the children to or from school or their numerous after school activities. And as for painting my doors, it does have a knock on consequence of the upheaval having to cover up the floor and walls and booking someone in and taking another day off work as some how tradies only seem to work 9-5 mon-fri.

For as long as I remember airlines have provided welfare, accommodation and food or reimbursement for these expenses. They are still doing this, but with the added burden of paying hundreds of euro in additional compensation. EU261 is not given at the airport. Passengers have to claim for it just like they will for their expenses incurred.

TURIN - I completely agree. Not only are we all paying higher ticket prices for no quantifiable benefit (I've seen no evidence of OTP improving which was the aim of EU261), safety standards have fallen, margins degraded. We risk many decades of safety advances being brushed aside.

As I heard it, it was a eurocrat who showed up at the gate after the doors were closed and was refused boarding. Wouldn't even qualify for compensation under the regulation, but he wanted the airlines to be punished.

The compensation amounts for cancellation were set at PUNITIVE levels to stop airlines cancelling flights for economic reasons. (Although a subsequent study after implementation showed no significant changes in rate of cancellations)

The regulation did not include compensation amounts for delays because of the fear of unforeseen consequences (as suggested above). However the ECJ decided that this wasn't fair because some delays could be as bad as a cancellation so they ruled that the punitive levels would also apply to almost all delays of more than 3 hours.

The rationale behind 261 was to dis-incent airlines from overbooking flights inordinately and inconveniencing passengers without adequate compensation.
The "they cancel flights due to low loads" is a red-herring. Might have been the case before advanced network planning when an aircraft and crew did A-B-A-B-A all day, but the network impact of a cancellation in today's environment is severe, to say the least. As a previous poster wrote, the difference in cancellation levels pre- and post-261 is static.
I assume that we all understand the concept of MTBF/MTTR and we all accept that complex systems are unlikely to operate unimpaired until obsolescence.
So do we expect a manufacturer to compensate us if an out-of-warranty vehicle refuses to start? Do we expect the same for a refrigerator manufacturer and do we SERIOUSLY expect consequential damages for spoiled food?
I do wish that people would put on their Captain Sensible caps and accept that a) we live with risk b) there's not always blame to be apportioned and c) "life is a box of chocolates; you never know what you are going to get."

By all means compensate Denied Boardings, but don't seriously tell me that bird strike should be compensatable "for the simple reason that our skies are populated with birds" (a judge at Manchester County Court)

I do wish that people would put on their Captain Sensible caps and accept that a) we live with risk b) there's not always blame to be apportioned and c) "life is a box of chocolates; you never know what you are going to get."

Alas, those days are long gone. Like it or not we are now saddled with the blame culture.

Sometimes the airlines are their own worst enemy tho. It is human nature to dislike being lied to or having the truth twisted and in this regard the airlines often anger passenger. A truthful explanation with regular updates could circumvent many passenger from claiming in the first place. The flight crews roll in this regard is crucial, both ways around.

So, when the flight deck announces that a delay was due to, say, a technical problem earlier on in the day but the company then says it was due to an ATC problem it causes PAX anger. To many thats like a red rag to a bull. It's guaranteed to cause more claims.

On the other hand, a few weeks ago I was boarded onto an FR flight to the med. Once the doors were closed the captain announced that there would be a delay due to another French ATC strike. We were pushed to a remote stand to await our slot which was expected to be around 3 hours away. However, the captain announced that they had filed for a new slot, avoiding French air space, and he hoped that would come through a bit quicker.

In the mean time he said the door to the cockpit would be open and he would welcome anyone who wanted to pop up for a quick look or a chat. He especially invited any children.

By making that extra effort PAX were happy to chat and bide their time until out slot to re route came through 2.5 hrs later. The delay was under 3hrs but I'll bet that had it been over 3hrs there would have been very few claims if any.

Some free soft drinks would have been very welcome on a hot aircraft but that minimal cost seems to have been a step too far. It would have earned the crew and the airline quite a few more brownie points.

The way claims are handled leaves a lot of room for improvement too, it all seems a bit 'Heath Robinson' at the moment.

If airline were to get smart over some of these issues they could potentially save themselves revenue. Alienating PAX with patronising drivel is not the way forwards.

Does someone have the definitive answer to this scenario.
You arrive at the airport in reasonable time, i.e. before the checkin is closed + a buffer. You checkin at a desk provided by the airline in question. You then arrive at security where there is a huge delay due to either lack of staff or broken equipment. It is a major airport wth multiple departure runways, many wide-body flights and so many many pax with flights departing within the next hour. All pax are trying to get to jump the queue. You miss your flight due to Airport services. Where do you stand for compensation? Does EU261 cover only claims against the airline; what about other links in the chain.

If the EU-crats dreamed up this EU261 deal because of their own irritation at delayed flights, as alleged by someone, did they also apply it to Eurostar?

RAT5, if the passenger fails to reach the gate on time, as stipulated on the documents, through no fault of the airline, then r261 does not apply. Any recourse with airport/security companies through the normal legal processes.

The Eurocrats do have a regulation for rail transport, but the compensation amounts are fixed at a percentage of the fair paid - they were not set at punitive levels.

Any recourse with airport/security companies through the normal legal processes.

Thank you. It seems this is a breakdown in the equality process of the whole operation. Claiming from an Airline under EU261 might seem simple, but as has been reported, airlines, like insurance companies, are masters at wiggling out of paying compensation; perhaps even with mis-information. However, the passengers' rights are well documented.
Having to claim against an airport via the normal legal channels would seem very deterring and often difficult to prove, and expensive. Missing your flight could turn out to be very expensive, though. There would be more wiggle room for the airport to deny liability than an airline.
Was there not a case some years ago at STN, where 00's of RYR pax missed flights due to lack of checkin desks? However, that would be because the airline did not pay for enough desks to cover its flights in that period. EU261 would have effect, but tricky to prove. Now the same things happen with security channels, which is the airport's fault. No EU261. Seems unbalanced from a 'consumers rights' point of view.

RAT5 absolutely right, but this regulation is designed to "punish" airlines for their overbooking and cancellation practices. And if you sue someone it is for actual proven loses, not for a fixed punitive compensation amount.

The EC wanted to ban overbooking until it was carefully explained to them the very large numbers of passengers that benefit from the practices. So they agreed that punitive compensation amounts were to apply to change the airline's behaviour. Funny, there has been no measurable change in the rate of involuntary denied boarding.

Wrt the airport vs airline responsibility question, in the UK, there is no problem issuing a single summons against both. Then assuming the judge decides in your favour, he/she will also decide who coughs up, and by how much.

There is greater incentive for either of them to agree a settlement out of court, in order to avoid the potential situation of their expensive lawyers attacking/defending each other for an extended period, rather than just trying to demolish your argument.

How much compensation can I claim if my flight diverts because of a medical and I am delayed? Passengers get sick. That is not an exceptional circumstance therefore surely I'm entitled to a bit compo?

I disagree HeartyMeatballs. By its very nature, a flight diversion, for any reason, is "exceptional". Doubtless any statistics on the subject will confirm this. After all, what percentage of flights fail to arrive at their planned destination, or make an unscheduled landing en-route? "Exceptionally" few.

No I disagree. Out of 3/400 people on a long flight particularly with an early morning departure there's a good chance someone would get sick. How many aircraft get hit by lightening or have a bird strike. Exceptionally few yet I would still get my luvvily EU compensation so why not a medical diversion? Or if a pax is sick on arrival and it takes forever to board and the outbound is delayed then I should get money. Or if a flight is delayed 2.5 hours, someone gets sick and I'm delayed getting off because we are asked to remain seated so the ambulance crews can perform CPR. Surely I should get compensation then?