Flight delay and cancellation: The compensation provided for the benefit of passengers who suffer from long delay
Faced with the multiplication of canceled or delayed flights, airlines are always reluctant to compensate their passengers. What to do then to assert your rights?
Since the start of the year, 16 million passengers have experienced cancellations and delays in Europe! They are therefore entitled, in application of the European regulation of 11 February 2004 to compensation. This regulation obviously concerns French air passengers.
This compensation is as follows: Your flight is canceled, Air Madagascar has two choices: redirect you on another flight under comparable transport conditions OR, failing this, refund your ticket within 7 days. If re-routing is possible, depending on the waiting time, it must pay for catering, refreshments and two telephone calls or two e-mail messages as well as accommodation.
In addition, there is a fixed compensation of 250 euros (125 euros the wait does not exceed two hours) for flights of less than 1,500 kilometers, 400 euros (200 euros if the wait does not exceed 3 hours) for flights between 1,500 and 3,500 km, 600 euros (300 euros if waiting less than 4 hours) for flights greater than 3,500 km. Please note that compensation is not due in the event of cancellation or delay due to extraordinary circumstances (strike by air traffic controllers excluding company personnel, storm, volcanic eruption, etc.)
If you are the one who cancels, the Malagasy company is not obliged to take your ticket or make arrangements, or at your expense. Play your cancellation insurance, failing that know that any payment by credit card entitles you to this insurance.
– your flight is delayed, the airline must assist you (catering, refreshments, accommodation, right to two telephone calls or two electronic messages. By delay should be understood 2 hours for flights up to 1,500 km, 3 hours for those between 1,500 and 3,500 km and 4 hours beyond.
For delays of 5 hours or more, the passenger has the right to continue, postpone or cancel his trip. In the latter case, the ticket must be refunded and if it is a connecting flight, the return must be paid for.
In all cases, except in extraordinary circumstances, the passenger is entitled to compensation as above.
Delay or cancellation of a flight outside the European Union, following the judgment of May 31, 2018 of the Court of Justice of the European Union, passengers are entitled to compensation in the event of the delay or cancellation of a flight with a stopover made outside the European Union, provided that it is a single reservation for all flights.
Please note that some airlines require passengers to prove that they have boarded the plane in order to reimburse them. You are asked to claim and keep your boarding pass.
It should be noted that in the case of package tours, it is the agency which organized your trips which must compensate you for the cost of turning to the airline responsible for the delay or cancellation.
The proliferation of delays and cancellations is becoming more and more expensive for air carriers who are reluctant to reimburse their passengers or even find tips for not doing so.
An air carrier for which Air Madagascar is not required to pay the compensation provided if it is able to prove that the cancellation is due to extraordinary circumstances which could not have been avoided even if all reasonable measures had been taken. been taken.
In extraordinary circumstances it is a question of weather conditions and the strike of the air traffic controllers … but not of the strike of the personnel (in particular the pilots) or the breakdowns of plane which are due to causes internal to the air carriers. In these latter cases, passengers must be compensated.
Startups are committed to helping victims
However, a passenger alone facing an airline company finds it difficult to be reimbursed, even if it means giving up.
This is why, SOS Conso informs us that there are companies specializing in assistance in the recovery of compensation.
Admittedly it is not free but it is hassle less with the key more chance of being reimbursed.