We have seen several posts over the past weeks by people who were disappointed when an airline failed to offer compensation for a delayed or canceled flight. I am posting my own experience on two separate trips to show that such claims can succeed, but (usually) if and only if one is actually entitled to it under applicable law.
EC 261 is a European Union regulation that covers passenger rights in certain situations of delayed or canceled flights, as well as downgrades in class, and re-routing. It applies to the UK and UK carriers post-Brexit as well as within the EU. This Chris Eliot article explains the basics of which flights are covered and which are not. There is a link to the full text of the regulation.
https://www.elliott.org/airline-problems/eu-ec-261-european-air-travel-rights-guide/
Basically, it covers flights between the EU/UK and North America (or other non European countries) on EU/UK-operated airlines. For flights on non-EU airlines, such as United American, Air Canada, or others, EC 261 only applies to flights originating within the EU or UK. So if you are flying United Airlines from the US to Europe, EC 261 does not apply. And of course it does not apply to domestic flights within the US and Canada.
For quick reference, Article 5 covers cancellations, Article 6 addresses delay, Articles 7 and 8 for the rules for compensation, and reimbursement, Article 9 discusses the airline’s duty of care in the event of cancellation or delay, and Article 10 covers upgrades and downgrades in class. There is an exception for “extraordinary circumstances” beyond the airline’s control set out specifically with respect to cancellation in Article 5, Section 3. Extraordinary circumstances are defined in Article 1 as including extreme weather events that jeopardize safety, political instability, and strikes. This pretty much leaves technical/maintenance problems with the aircraft, staffing problems, and other issues related to the airline’s operation as the causes for which one may seek compensation for canceled or delayed flights.
My first experience with an EC 261 claim was when our September 19 British Airways flight from Venice to Heathrow was canceled and we were re-booked on a later flight the same day. That flight was delayed (we boarded late and then sat on the tarmac for another hour) and had other issues (no food loaded onto the plane). The cancellation and the delay were both due to air traffic control limitations at Heathrow during the Queen’s funeral, an “extraordinary circumstance”, so we were not due any compensation for these issues.
However, our original tickets were in business class, but there were no business class seats left on the replacement flight, so we sat in row 22. I filed a claim with BA for reimbursement for the downgrade in class in the amount of the fare difference between the two classes at the time I purchased the tickets. BA has a form for this right on their website.
My claim was denied, with the response saying that we were not entitled to compensation because the flight was canceled due to extraordinary circumstances. I appealed, stating that we were not asking for compensation for cancellation, only for the downgrade from business class. Again it was denied. I sent a copy of all this with a letter pointing out the error to one of the VPs for customer service. He did not respond but simply passed it back to the claim department, and again my claim for “cancellation compensation” was denied. So I wrote a rather testy rebuttal, starting “Can’t anyone there read?” I stated (for the fourth time) that we were asking for reimbursement for the downgrade only, and this time I cited the specific sections of EC 261 that applied, and pointed out that there is no exception for “extraordinary circumstances” in Article 10, which covers downgrades.
A week later I saw a credit of $237 from British Airways posted on my credit card.