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Comment by MaxikCZ | Hacker News Reader

Yea, they tend to deflect. Then you send email quoting laws and inform them that next email will be trough lawyers, and they pay out quick (personal experience)

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In recent case I quoted the actual law & caselaw and the response I got was that I need to contact the marketing carrier and they will stop responding now. Funnily enough, the carrier I was in contact with was the marketing carrier (as background, codeshare flight was cancelled almost month earlier but I was never informed & I only discovered it when I went to airport).

So in my case the next step is to find lawyer.

Have you raised a complaint with the regulatory body they are registered to? That also works well.

NEB in Finland is Traficom, but they don't handle individual complaints. Those handled by Consumer Advisory Services and European Consumer Center & these are residence based as far as I understand (I'm Finnish citizen but I don't live in EU).

The only alternative to court is Consumer Disputes Board but their resolutions are just recommendations & Finnair has a long history of ignoring them so spending 2-3 years there seems like waste of time.

In my case, I filed a complaint with Iceland air regulatory authority, even though I lived in canada at a time, and when I told Icelandair I had done that, they suddenly became very proactive.

There are also firms that handle all of this for you for a % (in the region of 20%). They validate the claim and threaten ti take the airline to court if they don’t pay out.

I generally go direct to the airline these days but if I get pushback beyond what I’m willing to deal with myself, I’ll use one of those services.

Very common in Germany. Non-existant in Finland. Finnish consumer rights are very weak, they only work if the business cooperates[1]. Finnair is a state-owned company that acts like if they were legislation and courts themselves. I have avoided them as much as I can for many years.

[1] Probably the majority of businesses does. But shady used car dealers etc. and Finnair don't.

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