Delayed, cancelled or overbooked flight: your rights and practical advice

I'm moving away from the "discovering a place" type articles for a section that concerns all of you as travelers:

Know your rights in the event of a delay, cancellation or overbooking of your flight (the famous overbooking, which can be a reason for denied boarding!)

Indeed, few people really know (including me, before I looked into the subject) what the possible options are in the event of a dispute with an airline.

However, the amount of the compensation can go up to €600, regardless of the amount of the original ticket and up to flights taken 5 years ago!

Because the article needs to be illustrated a bit... Here at Survanabhumi airport.

To understand the phenomenon, here is some recent figures regarding France:

4,4 million French people see their flight delayed “excessively”
2 million find themselves with a completely cancelled flight
More than 300 are victims of overbooking (a practice I have already encountered...)

Around 6.8 million people are therefore concerned, out of 172 million passengers passing through French airports each year, this may seem insignificant but it is still 4%. But only 5 to 10% of people who are eligible for compensation actually take the step!

According to FlightRight, this represents 1,1 million passengers departing from French airports who would be entitled to compensation but who have never claimed it, for lack of knowledge.

Just to illustrate (how many of you actually read the captions of the photos 😉)

What are the conditions for delay, cancellation and overbooking that qualify for compensation?

The best thing is to look in detail at the explanations on this site, but to summarize (because I'm nice, eh!), here's what you need to remember:

In the event of excessive delay (Hey, did you see the time!)

To do this, it is necessary to define what constitutes an "excessive" delay. The answer depends on the relationship between the length of the delay and the distance of the flight in question. It is therefore considered significant when the flight is delayed compared to the scheduled departure time:

At least 2 hours for flights up to 1 km.
At least 3 hours for flights within the European Union of more than 1500 km and for all other flights of 1 to 500 km.
At least 4 hours for all flights over 3 km.

In the event of a delay, the company simply obligation to assist passengers, by providing you with certain services free of charge, such as:

refreshments and catering options depending on the waiting time.
hotel accommodation if the scheduled departure cannot take place until the next day, and any transfers to an alternative airport.

In any case, if the delay is at least 5 hours, you are entitled to a refund without penalty of your ticket if you give up the journey, to re-routing to your final destination or to the payment of the return ticket if you are en route and ultimately wish to turn back (but hey, who would want that??).

Knowing that according to the sites where I found the information (see here for example), sometimes they say that if the delay exceeds 3 hours on arrival (the exact time of which is determined by the moment the plane door opens and not the landing itself, according to a ruling by the CJEU of 4 September 2014), you can claim the same compensation as in the event of denied boarding (usually due to overbooking, see below).

The other site mentioned above says, and I quote: "No compensation is due by the carrier in the event of a significant delay, contrary to what is provided for in the event of denied boarding due to overbooking or cancellation."

What is certain is that if the delay is demonstrated to be due to extraordinary circumstances (natural disaster, exceptional weather phenomenon, war, etc.), you won't get anything...

Special case: in the event of a strike (a French specialty!)

In the event of a strike, two cases must be distinguished.

– Case 1: If the strike is not due to the company's staff, the latter must compensate you (which seems a little unfair in the end because it is beyond their control... that remains my opinion). In the event of force majeure, that is to say when the company demonstrates that the strike was unforeseeable and that no rerouting solution was possible, then it does not have to compensate you.

– Case 2: If the strike is due to the airline staff, the latter must compensate you in all cases (so double loss… ouch!).

To cite my personal case, when I missed my connection after a Paris – Doha flight that was delayed, Qatar Airways directed me and took care of me as soon as they knew that I was going to miss the said connection (Doha – Calcutta).

So in transit in Amsterdam, before experiencing a delay...

Unscheduled transfer via Bombay (Mumbai) in India, handled by Qatar Airways.

But what a mess I'm in!?

In the event of a cancellation (Honey, I'm canceling everything! Uh no, nothing to do with it)

It is first necessary to clarify in which cases compensation in the event of cancellation is not obligatory:

if the cancellation is due to exceptional circumstances (see examples above) or a case of force majeure, provided that the company has taken all measures to limit the effects.
if the company has informed the passenger at least two weeks before the day of departure
if it manages to deliver the passenger to the arrival airport at a time comparable to that initially planned.

In other cases, the compensation that may be requested and obtained will be flat rate depending on the flight distance :

€250 for a flight up to 1500 km.
€400 for a flight within the European Union of more than 1500 km and 1500 to 3500 km for other destinations.
€600 for a flight of more than 3500 km.

Fingers crossed, this has never happened to me before...

The date doesn't make me any younger...

In the case of overbooking (Heuuu, sorry we're full here... but I have my ticket heuhhh!)

The “sub site” of work discussing rights and finance, explains:

"The company that practices overbooking must first offer passengers who accept it to give up their flight, in exchange for compensation.

It must then offer compensation and assistance to passengers whose boarding it refuses."

The amount of this compensation is based on the same amount as in case of cancellation (so 250€, 400€ or 600€ depending on the distance)

Concrete case, during my first trips to Thailand, I only took the Etihad company, which practices overbooking (or at least used to, because I don't know today if it continues...).

I happened to see a nice lady from the staff, "desperately" looking for good souls ready to delay their flight to the next day, in exchange for a refund of €300 plus obviously the cost of the night. As such it can be interesting (it would have been the equivalent of a return flight for €250!) but I was in a hurry to join my sweetheart...

And in the end, I didn't regret having taken my plane tooth and nail (that expression comes from a long way back), since I actually received an upgrade due to overbooking in economy (the advantage of being a good customer and traveling alone!)

Memories memories….

Yeah, still classy!

Damages and interests

If you are the victim of a significant delay, a flight cancellation or denied boarding, you can then request additional compensation in the form of damages, which you can receive to compensate for any financial and/or moral prejudice (eg: loss of a deposit in the event of rental, cancelled vacation, loss of working days, etc.)

To do this, you must:

Firstly: send a written complaint with all supporting documents (ticket receipt, reservations made, etc.) and the amount of the request to the company concerned.
in case of refusal: contact the General Directorate of Civil Aviation (DGAC) at the address below (allow several months for the procedure)
otherwise, there is still the possibility of taking legal action (this is when you are really motivated!!)

DGAC (Economic Regulation Directorate)
Air Transport Facilitation and Customers Office
50, rue Henry Farman
75720 Paris cedex 15

How to get compensation

"Well, all these explanations are very nice, but how do we get these allowances and the money that interests us?" you might ask me?

First note that all the rules explained in this article apply according to European legislation, therefore to flights coming from a member country of the European Union (and therefore from France) but also from Norway, Iceland or Switzerland.
For flights originating from an airport outside Europe, only flights operated by a European airline are affected by this regulation, regardless of the destination of the flight and its origin.

To do at its simplest, you can use an intermediary site, of course they take 25% of the amount of compensation obtained, but with a success rate of over 90%, it's better than nothing! Among these sites, there is the one mentioned above, flightright.

Otherwise, if you take the steps yourself, you must contact the airline directly, then submit the response in order to bring the dispute to the Economic Regulation Department (address above).

You can also contact a mediator if you have not been able to reach an amicable settlement directly by contacting the airline or travel agency.

Le Tourism Travel Mediator is responsible for promoting an amicable solution and thus avoiding resorting to a court, by completing the entry form available on the site www.mtv.travel and sending it to the following address:

MTV Mediation Tourism Travel – BP 80 303 – 75823 PARIS Cedex 17.

It will handle disputes relating to the purchase of a flight only or a tourist package when the problem concerns: a travel agency, a tour operator or an airline adhering to one of the signatory organisations of the Tourism and Travel Mediation Charter: Fédération Nationale de l'Aviation Marchande (FNAM), CETO (Association of Tour Operators) and SNAV (National Union of Travel Agencies).

There you go! With all this I hope that this will help you see a little more clearly your rights as a passenger and traveler in this world!