THE airline industry owes business travellers €520 million (£349 million) in compensation for delayed and cancelled flights, says Pim de Vos, a European travel lawyer of De Vos & Partners in Amsterdam, and Hendrik Noorderhaven, owner of Lennoc, a Netherlands airline data management system.
For the past five years, Noorderhaven has been compiling airline delay and cancellation data, which, he claims, proves that the airline industry fails to deliver service either on time, or at all, 30 per cent of the time.
Under European law, travellers are entitled to monetary compensation ranging from €250 to €600, depending on the length of the delay and the destination. Corporate travel agencies, which sell business travellers a flight and an hotel, can also be held liable for compensation under laws that govern packaged holidays.
Noorderhaven estimates that the average delay on intra-European flights is 50 minutes, compared with 89 minutes on international flights. But de Vos says only a fraction of travellers ever claim monies to which they are entitled. Those that do make a claim find it difficult because of a nuance in the law that protects airlines if the delay or cancellation was due to forces beyond their control.
Noorderhaven plans to bring a lawsuit against the airlines in a European court next March and hopes to use the data he has compiled as evidence. He will also seek jurisprudence on who is responsible to compensate delayed passengers under existing airline codeshare agreements.
Noorderhaven is setting up a web site, www.euclaim.co.uk, which will go live in the UK in January, as a resource for business travellers interested in seeking compensation.
Under the law, travellers can seek compensation up to three months after their delayed or cancelled flight. Noorderhaven charges 17 per cent of any compensation won. Industry experts think this could have a huge effect on airline profits.
Flights to and from Europe’s main business arteries are the main concern, accounting for 85 per cent of compensation claims. Of the 25,000 daily flights within Europe, 300-350 are cancelled and 6,000 delayed (more than 15 minutes late).
Once an aircraft leaves the gate it is considered a departure, regardless if it actually takes off. Therefore, technically speaking, a flight that leaves the gate on schedule, but sits on the tarmac for an hour, departed on time.
“This is why we will base our court case on arrival times,” says Noorderhaven. According to his database, between September 1 and 30 flights from London Heathrow to Paris Charles de Gaulle on BA and Air France arrived late 55 per cent and 38 per cent of the time, respectively. BMI flights arrived late 27 per cent of the time. These airlines were not available for comment.
