A Eurowings flight from Ibiza to Dusseldorf diverted twice in one night after a mismatched bag was loaded, delaying 156 passengers by hours.
This is classic German being German.
Sounds like the airline messed up on this one. So... EU261 compensation for everyone? Mhm.
They can try, but the burden is on the airline to prove that defense to claims. I'd say the root cause here was operational mistakes (on the airline, not 'extraordinary circumstance.') Maybe they'll try to blame it on the weather, too... (shouldn't work either.) Under that distance and delay, probably €250 owed per passenger (IBZ-DUS is under 1,500 km, and 3+ hours late).
Not probably but definitely 250€!
Even if the mistake was done by a third party, e.g. baggage habdling service provider, it falls within the carriers control.
If EW denies the claim, don‘t waste time and contact a specialised German lawyer charging the regulated fees and giving a first take on the case free of charge, e.g. the popular Dr. Boese
I love your confidence, Felix! Let's hope those affected passengers are each aware! Wishing them all a quick recovery!
I wonder how come EU261 doesn't include the ability for the airlines to pass on these additional costs to the airports, or ATC provider? Anyone knows?
Bad actors have evolved so much from PA103.
You still assume these people are not suicidal.
Plus scanner technology has come a long way since.
We can't have unaccompanied bags on flights... except that bag will now travel unaccompanied back to IBZ and then to its original destination, so it seems like a fairly pointless diversion if you ask me
@Paul - there are different screening protocols for bags that are designated as unaccompanied, versus standard baggage that is accompanying the passenger. The bag would be screened to the unaccompanied protocol before it departs from Toulouse.
Sucks for all passengers on the flight for sure, hopefully they get their 250€. Also, really sucks for the person whose bag will probably be significantly delayed. Hope they get compensated as well.
Imagine you are the poor sop whos baggage is now in Toulouse, and EW will be like "We never heard of the Montreal agreement, here is 8€ per day the baggage is delayed"
Under the Montreal Convention: “The airline's liability for lost or delayed baggage is capped at roughly €1,300 to €1,860 (1,519 Special Drawing Rights).” After 21 days, considered ‘lost.’ Willfully ignoring the law is not a defense. I take it that was a glib hypothetical, but if a mere 8€ isn’t enough (it isn’t), affected passengers can/should sue; claim the maximum allowed/within reason. The only way some companies will ever respect any rules is when you try to hold them accountable. If we all did this in the aggregate, we’d be treated better because they wouldn’t get away with it.
This doesn't make any sense at all. Bags fly without their pax all the time (any RUSH bag does). The only rule that exists is that a bag/pax split can't happen intentionally (i.e. passenger checks a bag but no shows), which didn't seem to be the case here.
It should also be noted that no such rule exists on the EU level anymore as claimed in the article (not sure about Germany though). Since recently, it is permissible to dispatch a flight without unloading the bag even with a pax no-showing, provided certain criteria are met. PRG is one example of an airport where this definitely has been implemented.
Looks like they changed course about 35 minutes into the flight -- which would have put them closer to Barcelona than Toulouse. But what difference does 100km make, when it's not a real emergency?
Speaking of rules:
Two weeks ago I flew KLM AMS–BCN, completely full, and two passengers had been issued boarding passes for the same seat somewhere mid-cabin. Nobody noticed until the doors were closed.
I was in row 2 with my wife. Intra-European business class, so the middle seat between us was blocked and empty. We offered to take him – better than offloading a passenger and delaying the whole aircraft.
The crew thanked us and said they're not allowed to seat anyone in a blocked business class seat. The seat is blocked to give the business class passenger more space. I was the business class passenger, and I was the one offering to give it up.
They checked with someone, declined the offer, and offloaded the poor guy.
2 days after the door plug incident on AS we were booked YLW SEA SJC.
Our 195 arrived 2 hours late so we arrived in SEA with our bags and terrible immigration. Our bags made it on the SJC flight but we watched as the tug sent our SJC 195 on it's merry way = with our bags onboard.
AS overnighted us and next morning sent us to SFO. Bags in SJC. They eventually sent us by taxi to get the bags. (Took months to get paid).
If they had followed procedure they would have realized we were minutes away since our bags were loaded and they could have waited. Our bags could have contained anything\ Linking bags to passengers is a level of security that should be followed.