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Every year UK airline passengers are missing out on £115 million of unclaimed compensation for flight delays and compensation.
This is the finding of Dutch company EUclaim which specialises in gathering and analysing flight data and using it to assist passengers who have suffered long delays or flight cancellations.
EUclaim says that based on the average UK flight cancellation rate of 1.2% well over 1,000 UK passengers every day are entitled to compensation of up to £474 each.
In the last year in the Netherlands EUclaim has claimed compensation for 4,500 passengers and collected an average payout of £865 per claim.
Claims are made under EC Regulation 261/2004 introduced in February 2005 which gives airline passengers rights to compensation and assistance in the event of being denied boarding, cancellations, long flight delays and involuntary downgrading.
EUclaim says that in most cases airlines reject claims by individuals stating ‘extraordinary circumstances’ as the cause of the flight delay or cancellation.
Using computer systems that monitor every aircraft of every airline, EUclaim says it has successfully proved in about 70% of claims on behalf of passengers that airlines had cancelled, rebooked or overbooked flights for economic reasons and not as a result of ‘extraordinary circumstances’.
“Some of our customers had written six letters to airlines before asking EUclaim for help. In one case a passenger had been communicating with an airline company for over 6 months. After EUclaim got involved, the airline in question paid up within 2 weeks. Why? Airlines know that passengers will eventually give up. EUclaim won’t,” says EUclaim CEO, Hendrik Noorderhaven.
Written by: Nick Purdom
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