Lufthansa ‘cannot comply’ with my refund

Q On the afternoon of Sunday December 3, my partner and I were due to fly from Munich to London with Lufthansa. However, a severe snowstorm closed Munich airport and our flight was cancelled. We were rebooked for the following day but that flight was also withdrawn.

An agent at Lufthansa’s call centre advised us to travel to Frankfurt by train in order to fly back to London. She booked the new flights for us and told us to keep receipts for the train tickets and the hotel, as the cost would be refunded by the airline.

After our return, we used the refund form on Lufthansa’s website to submit the receipts: €223 (£190) for the train fares and €175 (£150) for the hotel.

However, our claim has been refused three times and our case closed. The airline simply says that it “cannot comply with your request for damage compensation”. Please can you help?

– Sophie Raymond

A Airlines might not like it, but they do have to look after stranded passengers when bad weather – or any other event beyond their control – leads to flight cancellations.

The rights of passengers to receive care from the airline in such cases are enshrined in EC Regulation 261/2004. This says that the airline must provide – or repay the cost of – necessary meals and refreshments, overnight hotel accommodation including transport costs, and two brief phone calls.

Under their Conditions of Carriage, airlines also have to fly passengers on the itinerary as originally booked. If they have to change the departure or arrival airport, they must swallow the extra cost of getting passengers to it.

Under the Help menu on its website, Lufthansa has a form headed “Compensation and refund of expenses in the event of flight disruptions”. However, the form itself talks only about making an “application for compensation”.

I suspect that poorly trained customer services staff are conflating two differing scenarios: the compensation which would be paid for delays within the airline’s control, and expenses payable for weather events.

I contacted Lufthansa at a higher level to get some action – and I too was told at first that no compensation was payable. However, the airline has now seen the light and says it is checking your invoices and will reimburse your expenses – though this is “still a work in progress”.

Force majeure events do typically put enormous pressure on understaffed customer service teams. It can take months for airlines to refund expenses claims, as they tend to be checked by personnel rather than machines.

Nevertheless, it is still always best to use the airline’s online reclaim form to submit expenses, because emails and letters sent to airlines often go unanswered these days.