Air passenger rights

Do you know your rights if your flight is delayed or cancelled? Does the airline provide the right information? And last but not least, is it worth appealing against any refusals by the airlines? Lawyer Owe Halvorsen has faced such a situation himself, challenged Norwegian and received compensation. In this blog post, he shares his own experiences.

Last summer, our entire family travelled to Portugal. We were travelling on Norwegian's DY1208 on 24 June 2017. After everyone was seated on the plane, it was announced that there would be a delay. New information followed that there was a system error and that they had to get an engineer on board to correct the error. Time passed and the engineer arrived. After some time, it was announced that further time would be needed because all systems had to be reinstalled.

After just over two hours, we were informed that we had to change aircraft. The time was probably chosen so that the delay would not exceed three hours.

After a quick transfer, we were on board a new aircraft. However, this had to wait to take off so more time passed. We were aware of the rule that delays of more than three hours, when the delay is due to the company's own fault, entitled us to compensation. So we started watching the clock. When the aeroplane finally took off, we thought we might make it. However, the flight south had a headwind, so when we landed, we were 3 hours and 16 minutes late.

Since there was a technical fault with the aircraft, we believed it was the airline's fault and that we were therefore entitled to standard compensation. This follows from EU Regulation 261/2004. Article 14 of the same regulation states that airlines are obliged to inform passengers of their rights in such cases. This did not happen. We therefore submitted a claim to Norwegian for standard compensation of EUR 400 per person for our group of eight. After some time, we received a refusal, on the grounds that they felt the delay was not covered by the rules. We strongly disagreed, and after a phone call with Professor Morten Kjelland, who has written his own textbook: «Air passenger rights in the event of delay and cancellation», we received full support for our view. We therefore filed a complaint with the Transport Appeals Board.

Last week, almost a year after our complaint was rejected, we received a letter from Norwegian stating that they had now carried out an overall assessment and found that we were entitled to compensation after all. We will therefore receive 3,200 euros or approx. 31,000 NOK!

To me, the case seemed so obvious that it is natural to believe that Norwegian had a clear strategy. Do not provide information about the rights of the passengers, which they were obliged to do, and then reject every claim. If a few of them are still hanging on, they give up before the tribunal hearing. The latter to avoid setting a precedent. I don't think many of the 180 passengers on DY1208 on 24 June 2017 received the compensation they were entitled to!