Back in October Mrs Ted and I went to Dusseldorf to sample some Altbier and to attend a Borussia Monchengladbach game. Our flight out with Eurowings was cancelled with less than 12 hours notice because their cabin crew were on strike. Eurowings left us in the lurch with no way of rebooking our flight with them so I managed to get the last two seats on a Flybe flight leaving the same day. Eurowings refunded the outbound leg which was 117 quid but refused to pay any further compo claiming a strike was an exceptional circumstance. The CAA website says that strikes are only an exception if the people of strike are not related to the airline, eg: ATC or baggage handlers etc. Eurowings still refuse compo so I checked the CAA website and found that Eurowings had signed up to Alternative Dispute Resolution with an organisation called Sop. The online form on Sop's website was easy to fill in and I attached my evidence. A couple of weeks ago Sop made a recommendation that Eurowings pay me a further 230 quid in compo for not making it possible to get us to our destination. Today Eurowings accepted the recommendation and it is now a contractual obligation for them to pay.
The moral here is to be persistent if you want compo from an airline as many refuse compo as a matter of policy. The CAA website is very good when it comes to explaining passenger rights and google searches gave me lots of info about EC regulation 261 which is the legislation that covers passengers rights. If the airline refuses compo, most are signed up to an alternative dispute resolution (ADR) organisation (the CAA website lists which airlines are signed up to which organisation), if the airline isn't signed up to ADR, the CAA themselves will investigate. So if you're refused, give ADR a go, you don't have to accept their recommendation, you can always go to court. So a good result for us. We're of to another Gladbach game next week, fingers crossed it will all go smoothly.
The moral here is to be persistent if you want compo from an airline as many refuse compo as a matter of policy. The CAA website is very good when it comes to explaining passenger rights and google searches gave me lots of info about EC regulation 261 which is the legislation that covers passengers rights. If the airline refuses compo, most are signed up to an alternative dispute resolution (ADR) organisation (the CAA website lists which airlines are signed up to which organisation), if the airline isn't signed up to ADR, the CAA themselves will investigate. So if you're refused, give ADR a go, you don't have to accept their recommendation, you can always go to court. So a good result for us. We're of to another Gladbach game next week, fingers crossed it will all go smoothly.