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Are You Entitled to Compensation from an Airline for Flight Delays or Problems?
According to a news report, many airline passenger are losing out on compensation which may be due to them when an airline claims to have ‘technical problems’. A Dutch company, EUclaim, monitors and tracks the movements of every airline twenty-four hours a day. Using the information they collect on flights they are often able to prove a case and successfully obtain compensation for passengers - even after an airline has denied to the claimant that any benefit is due.
An obscure EC regulation 261/2004 was introduced during 2005 and many air passengers are unaware that they have a right to compensation under this regulation if boarding is denied, flights are delayed or cancelled or they are downgraded. According to EUclaim airlines often use ‘extraordinary circumstances’ (usually technical problems) as the reason for last minute flight departure problems when the real reason may be economic and for their own benefit. Most passengers believe they have no way of disputing such a claim by an airline and give up.
EUclaim uses a calculator into which a passenger enters details of the flight for an analysis of whether compensation is due. If a claim is valid the company will take it up with the airline and fight the case for a fee of about 27% which is deducted from the amount collected. They even take it to court if necessary, and work on a no-win-no-fee basis.
For busy travellers who don’t have the time or patience to deal with airline beaurocracy this might be a great solution and certainly appears worth looking into. For more information visit the EUclaim website.
Also worth a visit is the Air Transport Users Council (AUC) website which is the UKs consumer watchdog agency for the Aviation Industry.
