Judge rules for passenger in flight delay battle
THOUSANDS of airline passengers will be in line for compensation for delayed flights after a court rejected attempts by an airline to block payouts.
A judge at Liverpool County Court has ruled in passengers’ favour in the test flight compensation case of Allen V Jet2.com, in a key decision.
District Judge Lee Jenkinson said Allen v Jet2.com could not be stayed (put on hold) pending the outcome of Dutch case van der Lans v KLM, as had been requested by Jet2. In his judgment he said “…a line should now been drawn. Justice delayed is justice denied.”
Five airlines (Jet2, Thomas Cook, Ryanair, FlyBe, WizzAir) had made similar applications to put their passengers’ flight delay compensation claims on hold. As a test case, it is likely that all other flight compensation claims in England and Wales across all airlines will now follow the decision made in Allen v Jet2.com.
The decision, following a full-day hearing on Wednesday stands to impact tens of thousands of passengers with flight delay compensation claims, across a number of airlines where they had requested similar stays.
Kim Allen’s case was originally stayed pending last year’s Huzar v Jet2.com case in which Court of Appeal judges ruled that technical problems are not an extraordinary circumstance under EU Regulation 261/2004.
The stay on her case was initially lifted after Mr Huzar’s victory but Jet2 soon made an application to stay Ms Allen’s claim yet again. This time they wanted to put the case on hold pending the outcome of a Dutch case, which has been referred to the European Court of Justice.
The van der Lans case will mainly look at whether a technical problem that arises spontaneously (as opposed to one which is detected during routine maintenance) is an extraordinary circumstance under EU Regulation 261/2004. Extraordinary circumstances are the airline’s only defence to paying out flight delay compensation.
Kim Allen is claiming €400 in flight compensation after a delay flying from Manchester to Malaga on March 26 2012. Her Jet2 flight LS809 was delayed by just under seven hours due to a technical problem, a Flap Slat fault, which occurred just prior to take off, meaning she missed her daughter’s performance with the band Bobby & Jemima.
Kevin Clarke, flight delay lawyer at Wilmslow-based Bott & Co Solicitors, who presented the case, said his firm alone has 8,000 outstanding claims against the five.
“We’re delighted that once again the court has rebuffed the airline’s attempts to continue delaying legitimate passenger claims,” he said.
“We’ve seen continual legal challenges to the finer details of flight delay regulation by the airlines since it was first introduced and it’s pleasing the court is now taking a firm line against them. We would hope that the airlines will now finally face up to their obligations to passengers and to settle the hundreds of thousands of legitimate claims outstanding.”
The case is expected to be referred to the Court of Appeal.
