Late Transavia flight: Proving inconvenience to obtain compensation
If your flight with Transavia is delayed on arrival by more than 3 hours, you are entitled to lump sum compensation in the form of travel vouchers. The compensation is:
€ 250 for journeys of less than 1,500 km;
€ 400 for all European flights over 1,500 km and for all other flights between 1,500 and 3,500 km;
€ 600 for journeys of 3,500 km or more for non-EU destinations. Knowing that for these journeys, if the delay in arrival is less than four hours, the amount of the compensation may be reduced by 50% to reach 300 euros.
You are compensated under the same conditions and according to the same scale as in the event of flight cancellation.
If you are in a case that gives rise to it, the lump sum compensation which is granted to you in the event of flight delay on arrival is as follows:
250 € for flights of 1,500 kilometers or less;
400 € for all intra-Community flights over 1,500 kilometers and for all other flights between 1,500 and 3,500 kilometers;
600 € for journeys of 3,500 kilometers or more for non-EU destinations. Please note, for these journeys, if the delay on arrival is less than four hours.
Cases where the victim is not eligible for financial compensation
The Netherlands air operator may waive its liability, and will therefore not be required to pay you the lump sum compensation, if it can prove that the delay was due to exceptional circumstances which could not have been avoided even if all reasonable measures had been taken.
To exempt the company from the obligation to compensate passengers in the event of flight delay, the circumstances in question must meet two conditions:
They must be extraordinary within the meaning of Regulation No. 261/2004 and which may occur, in particular, in the event of political instability, weather conditions such as snow, storm or thunderstorm, consequences of a volcanic eruption, … incompatible with the completion of the flight concerned, security risks, unforeseen failures which may affect flight safety as well as strikes affecting the operations of an operating air carrier. However, all the circumstances surrounding such events are not necessarily extraordinary and it is not enough that one of these events occurs to consider that there are automatically “extraordinary circumstances”.
To repeat one of the cases mentioned above, the circumstances giving rise to “unforeseen failures which may affect flight safety. A technical problem occurring in the aircraft for example, will only be described as extraordinary if they relate to an event which by its nature or origin is not inherent in the normal exercise of the activity of the air carrier concerned and which escapes its effective control. Thus, technical problems revealed during the maintenance of the devices or which have arisen due to the lack of such maintenance, do not constitute, as such, exceptional circumstances within the meaning of the European regulations.
On the other hand, the situation in which it would be revealed by the manufacturer of the aircraft constituting the fleet of the air carrier concerned, or by a competent authority, that these, while they are already in service, are suffering from a hidden defect manufacturing affecting flight safety is subject to extraordinary circumstances. The same would apply in the event of damage to aircraft caused by acts of sabotage or terrorism. Note that the frequency of a technical problem on an aircraft is not, in itself, a sufficient element to conclude that there are no major forces.
These must be circumstances which could not have been avoided by any means. It is then up to the person who intends to rely on it to establish that these circumstances could not, in any event, have been avoided by measures adapted to the situation, that is to say by those who, when these circumstances arise, in particular meet technically and economically bearable conditions for the air carrier concerned. In other words, the carrier must establish that, even by using all the personnel or material means and the financial means at its disposal, it clearly would not have been able, except to make unbearable sacrifices with regard to the capacities of his business at the relevant time, avoid that.