Following a disabling strike at the airport, was your TUI Fly Belgium plane forced to stay on the tarmac?
European law provides that companies compensate passengers in the event of cancellation or long delays. Private companies are responsible for collecting the money instead of customers.
Hundreds of thousands of passengers are affected each year by strikes by pilots and cabin crew. The movement can last for several days, suddenly hundreds of flights may be canceled.
More than ten thousand passengers planning trips with TUI Fly Belgium are affected by these movements every year.
Cabin crew or pilots sometimes refuse the collective agreement setting their work, pay and promotion rules, suddenly, the strike movement may last longer than expected.
In the event of canceled or delayed flights, the passengers, who most often ignore it, can demand, in addition to the refund or exchange of their ticket in the event of cancellation, financial compensation from the Belgian airline? Which, of course, reluctant to do so. Except under duress. Private companies have understood this. For a few years and for a fee, they have been taking care of these steps for travelers.
The law stands by the victims
Under European law, the passenger whose flight is delayed has the right to compensation when he reaches the final destination indicated on his transport contract three hours or more after the arrival time initially planned by the carrier. These flat-rate compensation are as follows: 250 euros for journeys of 1,500 kilometers or less, 400 euros for those between 1,500 and 3,500 kilometers and for all intra-Community flights of more than 1,500 kilometers, 600 euros beyond 3,500 kilometers for non-EU destinations.
Compensation companies are available to passengers
More than twenty million air passengers victims of delayed, canceled or overbooked flights all over the world won their case thanks to startups in charge of collecting penalties from companies, before being remunerated by deducting a commission from the compensation paid by the air carrier.
These firms have the capacity to analyze global traffic data, and last year no less than two million passengers in Europe suffered a flight canceled or delayed by more than three hours during the summer season only when less than 5% of them succeeded in obtaining compensation.
Get compensation: Recommended procedures: Just go to the sites of these collection companies and provide the information requested, such as identity, electronic ticket, boarding pass, etc. Then these companies put in action their lawyers, who judge if a procedure is founded and has a chance of succeeding. They then contact the law firms with which they are used to working and which deal with action near the airlines and, if necessary, in the courts to recover the compensation claimed.
Does the flight crew strike give entitlement to compensation?
Strikes are not considered to be extraordinary circumstances which release companies from all liability and which, therefore, are not obliged to pay a delay payment to their passengers, especially if they are planned in advance.
The notices issued before the flight crew or pilots’ strike do not fit into the exceptional circumstances described by European law on air passengers. In other words, passengers can be compensated in such a social conflict.
Conversely, a strike by air traffic controllers removes all responsibility from the company, which is not directly responsible for the disruption caused, which has happened several times this year.
Deadline for submitting your application
Passengers have two years to submit flight delay records and five years for overbooking or flight cancellation records. European law allows them to have three years to make their claim.
The commission charged by the company is estimated at 25% of the cost of compensation. If it cannot guarantee remuneration, no service charges will be applied.
The startup is paid directly by TUI Belgium and also takes no commission if the case is not concluded positively outside the courts. And if the legal proceedings are partially or totally lost, the law firm bears the costs.
The filing and analysis of your form, the constitution of your file and analysis of your supporting documents, exchanges of letters, fax, emails and calls with the company are free. It is only at the end of the procedure when the compensation is paid into your bank account that they deduct their commission in order to cover their costs. But if their intervention does not succeed, you owe them nothing, regardless of the time spent on your case. Their commitment is simple: no results, no commission. Compensation is linked to their success.
What is the average period required to process your file
Most cases are settled in less than three months, but the differences can be significant depending on the airline. The fastest compensation takes place in a month, the longest can take more than a year.