maryinmadison

I want to tell all the travelers to Europe about the very significant compensation that you can get if an airline in Europe bumps you from a flight due to overbooking. Here is our (amazing to me!) experience.

We (blended family of 7) flew Iberia Chicago to Madrid Oct 27, returned Nov. 7.

When we got to the Madrid Barajas airport for our flight home- we arrived 2 hours before our 11:50 am departure- Iberia told us there were no seats available on the flight due to overbooking.

Iberia put us on an alternate flight thru London. We arrived in Chi. about 4 1/2 hours after the original flight would have arrived.

The Iberia counter people in Madrid told us to contact Iberia when we got home and we would get "monetary compensation" for the overbooking of the flight. I didn't think much about it (assuming it would be a small amount equvalent to some meal vouchers or the like) until chatting with a couple from Chicago on the bus out to the plane. They showed us a "Passengers Rights" brochure that they got from Iberia and told us we were entitled to 600 Euros of "denied boarding compensation" for each passenger.

I e-mailed Iberia and faxed them some info, and yesterday they called asking where to send the checks! We are receiving a total of $5020-- even though we were rebooked and got to our destination only 4 hrs and 40 minutes late. I am really amazed by this.

Here is the web address for a brochure put out by the European Commision about eligibility this type of compensation. the brochure is very easy to understand.

http://europa.eu.int/comm/transport/...leaflet_en.pdf

crepes_a_go_go

Thanks for posting this. I got an email from Airfrance when this law went into effect. I had not heard of anyone putting it to the test. Nice to know it's for real.

rex

I suppose that I don't have time to lobby...

... for Hawaii to join the EU before our Dec 31 trip, do I?



Best wishes,

Rex

StCirq

Thanks for the link, mary. I'm printing this out and it's going in my Europe carryon right this minute!

Sue_xx_yy

I have to wonder, though, who will end up paying for all these big $$$ compensations in the end. Where will be the 'compensation' for the increase in average airfare?

flanneruk

There's an important piece of small print in all this, which comes down, roughly, to "unless it's down to circumstances outside the airline's control".

Like if equipment's changed because planes are mispositioned.

So don't bank on it. And don't expect it if a flight's cancelled?

Who's paying for this? Passengers. Unlike American airlines, no EU airline is allowed to receive any kind of public subsidy (though Alitalia manages to come close).

But, from the point of view of most EU governments, this is a great way of putting pressure on those nasty, British-based, Greeks and Irishmen whose low-cost airlines are quietly destroying the state-owned dinosaurs.

Christina

wow -- I'm amazed at this. I didn't think you'd be owed anything since they got you on another flight.

Too bad it doesn't apply to US carriers, they don't give anything like that out. I wonder what they call beyond their control. I know once I got home over 24 hours late due to American Airline's having two defective planes in a row with mechanical problems. Everyone on the entire flight was delayed over a day.

My opinion is defective planes and mechnical problems are in your control, but I got no compensation for that.

clevelandbrown

According to the brochure, this would also apply to any flight originating in the EU, which would appear to include US airlines, at least for the return leg, although I'm sure they would argue that a round trip ticket is a flight originating in the US.

While I never studied international law, I do know that a lot of the governing law concerning international flights is based on treaty, and I would think that some parties (the individual EU countries who signed the treaty) cannot unilaterally abrogate parts of the treaty. I looked up Continental's contract of carriage and it still says their limit of liability for damaged or lost luggage is something like 10 cents a pound; obviously far different than the limits set out in the brochure. So I suspect the politicians and lawyers will be doing a lot of work on this matter.

Flanneruk is absolutely right in pointing out that it is the ticket-buying public who will pay for all of this. Even were I to agree that US Airlines are subsidized, that just means we are paying even more as any government subsidy is paid by the public, with a healthy surcharge for the bureaucracy involved.

Apparently most people don't understand that taxes, fees, fines, and increased costs imposed on companies are paid by the company with money they take from their customers. The US congress, in its collective wisdom, is now considering levying extra taxes on the fuel industry because they made too much money when the price of oil went up and the refineries went down. Who is fooling who? All congress is doing is increasing the cost of fuel to all of us who use it.

rkkwan

The OP and family were bumped involuntarily. Not mechanical, not weather. They were definitely going to be compensated, on any EU or US airline, even before the new laws passed. The difference is that it's now 600 Euro. Before an airline could get away with like $300-400.

Flyboy

I've received as much as $800 in future flight credit for voluntary denied boarding compensation but in the last few years, it seems to have settled in at around $300 for domestic. I pick up a few every year, it seems. The difference in the OP's case is that it was actual money and not credit. As rkkwan points out, this was a case of INVOLUNTARY denied boarding compensation, (which is not all that common, but happens.)

For less frequent travelers or with airlines that a person is not likely to fly on again within a year, getting $$$ is obviously a far better option than the usual credit toward future air travel on a typical voluntary bump. (I was offered 500 Euros on an overbooked flight out of London earlier this year but was instead able to be upgraded to business class.)

For mechanicals, you should often receive some compensation, although I've found that it is not always offered and I suppose there is some fine print in the contract of carriage. For weather delays, there is no compensation required. For overbooking, you will definitely receive compensation.

The cost to the airline may seem high, but what if, for example, the carrier oversold late seats on that flight for 1,500 Euros? They may be money ahead to fill the seats with high-priced, last-minute tickets and then pay off the volunteers -- or even non-volunteers -- for something less than that to fill seats on another flight that is not necessarily oversold.

Flyboy

Oh, one more thing: congratulations to maryinmadison on the SUPER outcome and thanks for sharing some very valuable information for people who may find themselves in this situation. It's really nice to see a big family that made a big commitment come out with a nice downpayment on the next adventure!

maryinmadison

I agree with what some have said that it seems like really we got more than we deserved- and we'll all "pay" for this generous policy somehow. I wondered why Iberia would overbook when that then had to pay us more than we paid for the tickets and fly us home too. The only thing I came up with was that they got big $$ from someone else for our seats ( we got them cheap) and they still came out making $ on the whole deal.

yes it was a great adventure to take the kids to Spain-- they are great travelers- we took all 5 to Egypt 2 years ago! There's nobody I'd rather travel with. They are now ages 11-17, 4 boys, one girl, and tons of fun. In Spain we were on a "2 meals a day" plan to save money most days (although there was often compensatory ice cream involved in the evening) and several nights there were 2 in a bed or one on a couch.

We actually "spent" our windfall on the opposite of travel- we bought new furniture for our living room! But we hope to take the whole gang to Ireland and Scotland sometime next year. I'll use the new couch to go over maps and guidebooks...

beanweb24

Thanks for posting this info. We were to fly home from Venice to Washington DC on Friday, but flights were cancelled due to strikes. Air France never informed us of our Air Passenger Rights. We're going to do some further research on the regulations to see if we're entitled to anything...would be nice to, at minimum, get my extra night lodging refunded to me.

lanz

Hi all
We were on one of several Alitalia overbooked flights out of Milano this past monday the 28th. Due to taking back our leased car and making a wrong turn to Malpenza we were running about 20 minutes behind schedule...but still in enough time to easily make our flight to Washington DC.
But when we arrived at the desk the lady (they had one person working!) informed us of the overbooking of our flight and that we would probably be diverted to London or Paris or Geneva and there catch another flight that very day.
So next we went to another counter and waited with several others (nearly all Americans) and chatted for about an hour while the ONE other person tried to rebook all of us on new flights.
It turned out that about 4 flights in all--- to Boston, New York, Madrid and Washington DC (those were the ones I knew about anyway) were all overbooked!
Some folks got on board a later flight. One lady's husband went ahead of the family being assured they would arrive later that day,but alas for them it was not the case.
Many of the Boston group stayed in Madrid for the night and came back the next day. I don't know if they got "compensation" but I know they received hotels for the night.
My family and this other lady and her two children were given flights to London in a couple hours and then flights to Washington for the FOLLOWING day.
My kids were thrilled. Only the oldest had been abroad before and so we found ourselves in London a few hours later, carrying vouchers for the taxi service, the 4 star hotel, and the meals as well as 600 euros apiece!
I was flabbergasted! We had specifically bought the cheapest fares we could find (being on a tight budget) and this reimbursement was more than 100 dollars more than we had paid per ticket!
I don't mind getting free money or a night in London (the Indian food was great) but how can this be a good thing for the airline???
My friend who travels abroad and in the U.S. assures me that all the airlines just write it off all the time and it is no big deal. Certainly when we questioned the girl at the counter she assured us this was not unusual at all...happens everyday in her world. I thought maybe it was the big rush back to America after Thanksgiving or the strike of a couple days before but she said no.
Anyhow my kids have decided we should always be at the back of the line for all future flights from now on!

clevelandbrown

Airlines overbook because they know, with a high degree of accuracy, that a certain percentage of ticketholders will, for whatever reason, miss that flight. While selling a last-minute ticket is very profitable, there is a chance that no-one will be there to buy, or that whoever is there will be unable to afford the ticket. If they leave a set empty, lost revenue is a certainty.

I don't know what effect this EU policy will have, but I doubt that the practice of overbooking will cease; perhaps the airlines will overbook by a lower percentage; perhaps they will raise prices to cover their increased costs; perhaps they will stop selling refundable tickets.

Airlines are hardly the only business that overbooks. I think it is common in the lodging and the cruising business also. And who has not had to wait for a table to become available at a restaurant, even when you have a reservation?

Sue_xx_yy

maryinmadison, I'm happy for you as an individual, and I am glad you brought this to my attention. However, the more I think about it, the more I'm dumbfounded by this policy.

Restated, these 'strengthened passenger rights' looks to me like the following:

"You have the right to have your safety jeopardized as EU airlines start pushing harder to meet time deadlines. This they will do, albeit not admit to doing." [Note: regarding delays, nobody is 'later' than the dead.]

"You have the right to buy what amounts to an involuntary lottery ticket, in the form of higher airfares, in which a certain percentage of the time you will win big, as in most lotteries, but again as in most lotteries, most of the time you will simply lose."

"You have the right to look forward to higher taxes on things you buy in Europe, in order to pay off the Europeans whose livelihood went out the window when this legislation made it impossible for EU airlines to compete on routes originating outside the EU. You also have the right to pay yet higher airfares on the remaining airlines, who will respond to the reduction in competition in the usual manner - by raising airfares."

"You have the right to ponder how it is that governments cannot seem to come up with any means of addressing a problem other than by implementing some form of direct or indirect tax on the public."

This last is the most important. By all means, governments should monitor airlines to see that they do not unduly overbook, etc. We have certainly already paid them to do this, via the extremely high taxes we pay on airfares.

However, it is possible my analysis is flawed, and I welcome comments.

WallyKringen

My experiences match those of flyboy. Around $250 to 300 dollars on domestic flights where they rebook you within a couple of hours seems to be the norm - occasionally there is a bit of wiggle room if you sense that they're desperate (especially on small puddle hoppers).

$800 was offered and paid by AA without having to ask for it when they needed to combine two flights from LHR to the US and asked for volunteers. Plus vouchers for a very nice hotel nearby, plus vouchers for shuttle, dinner (£25) and breakfast.

If you haven't done this - it can really pay off to volunteer your seat as long as you're only travelling with carry-on and don't have strict commitments for on-time arrival. Listen for the tell-tale announcement and make a beeline for the gate personnel - first in, best recompensed.

WK

Nikki

We were bumped in both directions on our trip from Boston to Paris on Air France in February. It was school vacation week and it is always overbooked. They gave us a choice of $500 apiece cash or vouchers for $950 apiece. We took the cash. And business class the following day. The next day they were looking for volunteers again, but we went to Paris.

Coming home, they were overbooked again and for some reason only one of us was confirmed on the flight. They offered us 375 euros apiece cash or 675 euros apiece in vouchers for future flights. This time we took the vouchers. They put us up at an Ibis hotel near CDG and we flew the next day. They were looking for volunteers the next day too, but we had to get back.

Flying to Paris vacation week again this February, hoping for more of the same.