Passengers who suffer flight delays of more than three hours are being urged to claim compensation from their airline, following a county court hearing.
Airline consumer rights body EUclaim issued the plea following a Middlesbrough County Court case on Monday. Three Thomas Cook passengers were claiming compensation for a delay of more than 28 hours on a flight from Manchester to Las Vegas.
Thomas Cook successfully applied to have the case ‘stayed’ pending a referral to the European Court of Justice. But Her Honour Judge Hallam clarified that there was not an automatic general stay on all airline delay cases.
The question of a stay should therefore be decided on a case by case basis, according to solicitor Mike Rattenbury, who represented the passengers. The court also ruled that a stay was not tantamount to a suspension of European Commission regulations on airline delays, he said.
EUclaim chief executive Hendrik Noorderhaven said: “It is vitally important that passengers who may have such claims now pursue them and bring them to the attention of the airlines as soon as possible.
“Although EUclaim is disappointed that it has taken many months to clarify the position, it now trusts that airlines will proceed to process compensation claims.”
The effect of the ruling is that any passengers who have claims against airlines for compensation under European Regulation 261/2004 for a delay of more than three hours where ‘extraordinary circumstances’ do not exist, can proceed with their claim, according to EUclaim.
“This means that the Civil Aviation Authority’s enforcement powers as national enforcement body are not affected by any stays and therefore they must continue to uphold the law on delay compensation,” said Rattenbury, a director of EUclaim.
“We are happy that the courts in the UK have confirmed what we always knew- that delay claims against airlines have not been stayed generally,” he added.
“This means that the CAA, and airlines themselves, must continue to interpret the regulation as imposing an obligation on air carriers to pay compensation in the event of a long delay. If the airlines fail to comply, the CAA can invoke its powers of enforcement.”