YYou must know you are protected by several rights that in most cases are not fulfilled by the airline companies, they go even further blocking any complaint (most of them never have an answer), usually the company’s strategy.

What can we do if suffer from an aerial delay?

Everybody has suffered an aerial delay while traveling. The communitarian regulation lays down rules about compensation and assistance of the aerial passengers, in the case o fan aerial delay, and clearly establishes that the affected people must be compensated by the companies.

This regulation establishes four basic rights for the passengers affected by an aerial delay:

Right to compensation for the delay consequence. The carrier is responsible of the passengers damages because the aerial delay.

Right to reimbursement, or an alternative transportation.

Right to assistance. In every case, despite the distance, the company must offer two free calls, telex or fax messages, or e-mails, and also enough food and drink, and accommodation according to the waiting time.

Right to be informed. Every aerial carrier must give each passenger an information booklet about their rights, if there is an aerial delay..

The communitarian Regulation nº 261/2004 lays down a certain rights for the passengers when de delay in a flight in regard with the previous arrival time is:

• 2 hours o more in a 1.500 Km. flights.

• 3 hours o more in all the intra-community flights longer than 1.500 Km. and all the flights from 1.500 Km. to 3.500 Km.

• 4 hours and every other flight.

In these cases, free meals, refreshments , accommodation and transport must be offered to the passengers. However , if the delay is for 5 hours o more, whatever the distance of the flight, the customers have the right to the reimbursement of the complete cost of the ticket corresponding to the trip’s part o parts don’t taken, in seven days. And if the scheduled departure hour is at least the next day, the passengers will have the right to an accommodation and the transport in a hotel.

If the passenger suffers a damage because the delay, he will be able to complain his compensation as an additional indemnification to the customer’s protection measures, as planned in the E C Regulation, in accordance with several rules about the affected flights with delays being national or international.

How are the delays regulated, and what have we rights to?

The carrier is responsible for the damages caused for delays in the aerial transport for passengers, luggage or loading. However, the carrier won’t be responsible for the damages caused for the delay if he can prove that he and his subordinates took all the reasonable necessary steps to avoid the damages, or that they couldn’t took these steps.

Responsibility’s limits about the delay, the luggage and the loading. In the case of damages caused by delay, as is specified in the art. Nº 19 about the people transport, the carrier’s responsibility it’s only to 4.159 rights specials of “giro” for each passenger.

Translation: The aerial carrier has his responsibility about delay, limited to a maximum amount of 5.063 € for passenger (4150 Specials Rights of “giro” –says the Protocol-, is a measure unit of the International Monetary Fund). However this limit of responsibility doesn’t mean an automatic compensation, therefore he must credit the damage’s amount, and complain for this amount. The aerial carrier usually plead act of providence and that every necessary steps had been taken to avoid the delay, to exempt himself of any responsibility.

The act of providence that can exclude from responsibility must be completely proved by the airline company that plead it. The airline companies usually included in the contract, some clauses in which they exempt themselves of any responsibility about the guaranty of the connections and also about the timetable fulfillment, but these clauses are rejected and considered null by the court under the General Law for the Consumers and Costumers Defense, because they think that are abusive and illegal upon the costumer’s rights.

Which indemnification, can you demand for caused damages as a consequence of an important aerial transport delay?

It proceeds to ask for an indemnification for all the damages caused to the passengers, when they can prove them properly ( for example expenses from accommodation, transport, car renting, etc., that would have been necessary, and don’t be taken upon the airline company). But separately of the material damages, the court understands, - mainly since the Supreme Court sentence-, that in these cases moral damages are produced that must be compensated. In regard with the granted amount for moral damages, it depends on the circumstances of every specific case ( delay importance, travel kind, and specific trouble for the passenger, given assistance by the airline company, demanded amount in the complaint etc), but usually the court points out for each customer, amounts between six hundred and fifteen hundred euros.

The right to get a compensation conclude if an action it’s not originated into the two years term.