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Comment by tschwimmer | Hacker News Reader

The compliance with this law is anecdotally very poor. Swiss Airlines owes me thousands of Euros for missed connections but they contend that the situations were outside their control (some mechanical issue) and thus they refuse to compensate. I have a 200 long thread email chain spanning years with no progress. You can use services like Airhelp to get a refund but they take a huge commission and I am too stubborn to give in that way. Luckily the statute of limitations on these claims is 6 years so I have enough time to figure out how to make a complaint to the Swiss aviation authority.

Scanning a forum like flyertalk shows that most airlines basically refuse to voluntarily honor this law without being forced to in court (not even the threat of a lawsuit will get them to pay, you actually have to file it).

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I have claimed thousands of euros since 2018(ish) and never had a single issue. I definitely believe that airlines can try to avoid paying it, but I don't think it's as common as you make it out to be.

The only people on flyertalk will be the people that do have issues. People that don't have issues won't go there to post that everything is fine (e.g. me).

I have never dealt with any emails, the airlines I've dealt with always have a form on their website to claim compensation. I fill it in and in a week or two I get the money. Swiss has one too[0].

I pretty much always try and book the shortest layovers possible if I'm not in a rush and the airline will sell me the ticket. 55 minute layover in Heathrow? Let's go! There's probably a 50% chance that I miss that connection and get compensated.

[0] https://www.swiss.com/de/en/customer-support/contact-us/appl...

I used to fly quite a bit from Schiphol, and booked evening flights as a rule with €80 youth tickets. Now, Schiphol is one of those airports where there are so many flights that delays almost certainly trigger a domino effect and there’s a similar 50/50 delay probability as your Heathrow example in my experience.

I never calculated the net value of my €200 compensations for €80 flight tickets, but I have a feeling I managed to gain money from my accumulated flights during the six months when I travelled back and forth between Stockholm and Amsterdam quite a bit.

Any flight originating from EU territory is subject to this law, regardless where its other legs are.

I once had a flight Bulgaria -> Moscow -> South Korea, and the second leg got delayed for 6 hours, resulting in a very miserable experience.

Because I was sleep deprived and had no idea what my rights were, I accepted the $20 “compensatory voucher” that they offered and thought the matter was closed.

Sometime after I got back, a company contacted me saying they will issue a court case on my behalf getting the €800 from the airline (2 passengers). Such companies thrive under the “loser pays” system in europe as they just take on those slam dunk cases and have their expenses compensated.

Long story short after about 2 years of going through courts I got the money (minus the 30% fee from the company), and all I did was answer 2 emails and wait it out.

Do you have the name of the company who helped you? I'm going through something similar right now with Wizz Air.

It was https://www.skycop.com/ but there are quite a lot of those companies if you google them out.

Thank you. The fact that these companies exist is evidence enough of the problem.

Every time it has happened to me the airline paid out quickly without any fuss. Once with KLM the plane broke over Siberia, they flew back and put me on a flight the next day. I got my 600 eur compensation and also the cost of two train tickets for the extra trip between home/airport and they didn't even ask for receipts.

For the longest time Ryanair actually gave me more money than I spent with them on tickets.

Counterpoint, it has happened to me twice, once with Lufthansa and another time with a low cost airline (Vueling). Both times I was paid without fuss. Both times I filed for it myself.

> I have a 200 long thread email chain spanning years with no progress. You can use services like Airhelp to get a refund but they take a huge commission and I am too stubborn to give in that way. Luckily the statute of limitations on these claims is 6 years so I have enough time to figure out how to make a complaint to the Swiss aviation authority.

The legal route might have a long satute of limitations but you should still not let a company stall for this long and instead file a dispute with the payment provider as soon as the company is being uncooperative.

Anecdata but I went with the process once with Lufthansa (EU internal flight) and once with Delta (flight from EU to US) and in both cases got my 300/600e compensation in a few days via a bank transfer, no questions asked, no 3p company needed. I just sent an email with flight data and my personal data.

Untrue. It's mandatory to have processes in place. I was refunded once by Swiss within 4 days after applying to their online form. I will be refunded by Easyjet within the next week for a flight I took last Tuesday. This law, like the one on carriers roaming, are clear and strong EU successes.

Indeed, if you try to get them to refund you by yourself, they will keep saying that it was out of their control. But I've gotten several refunds over the past years by going through one of several companies who specialize in getting airlines to give refunds. Granted they take a % cut, but you still get most of it without lifting a finger.

Not as easy. Unless they can claim weather related issues or force majeur (bomb threat, security issues etc..) they can't do that. The reason for the plane delay has to be stated on IATA reports and systems. Technical issue is not an exception, for example, even if out of the airline's control. They used to do this more, but they probably realized that the legal cost to sustain systemic lying is not financially viable in the long term. Better to pay out and record a loss.

Swiss Airlines also owed me a bunch of money years ago, but I gave up chasing them. I should have used one of the services that takes 25%. 75% is better than zero!

Financially? mathematically? Yes, certainly. From a principles perspective? it's a lot closer ;)

Yeah I'm trying to be more rational about the opportunity cost of my time.

From a principles perspective, I'd rather the airline be forced to burn the money than get to keep it. Getting to keep a place chunk of it myself seems great.

From a principles perspective, if someone wronged me, I'll burn them down, even if I end up getting zero.

Getting 75% would be a windfall.

Yup, you don't even need to vindicative for this to make sense - it's simple game theory: always make sure that wronging you is more expensive than treating your fairly.

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