Flyers get more rights in Canada, Europe

Find out what an airline could owe you for ruining a trip.

It’s not often air travelers get a win, but recent laws and legal decisions are giving passengers a few more rights.

Canada enacted the first phase of a new air-passenger protection code that applies to overbooked flights on July 15. The next wave goes into effect in mid-December, establishing rules for compensating those who are delayed or have a flight canceled. The changes apply to all flights to, from and within the country.

And in Europe, a legal ruling this month added more protections to long-standing passenger rights regulations. According to flight-disruption compensation company AirHelp, the decision by the European Court of Justice essentially applies to code sharing. It clarifies that travelers can seek compensation from the airline they booked their flight with, even if the delay or disruption happened on a connecting leg that was operated by a different carrier — even a non-EU airline. The flights must have been made under the same booking reference.

“This is the first time that a carrier in [the European Union] can be responsible for paying compensation for another carrier’s fault,” says Christian Nielsen, AirHelp’s chief legal officer. “It now puts passengers in a better position.”

AirHelp is one of several companies that work with passengers to get compensation from airlines, taking a battle to court when needed. Others include Flightright, ClaimCompass and Refund.me; all take a slice of the money if they successfully negotiate a claim.

Despite the cottage industry that has grown around the issue of compensation for disrupted trips, travelers — and especially Americans — are not well versed in their rights. According to AirHelp, nearly 108,000 U.S. air travelers

were eligible to claim some type of money under the European regulation known as EC 261 between Memorial Day and Labor Day last year, but almost 61,000 still have not. A 2018 study by the company showed that 92 percent of U.S. travelers and 85 percent of European Union passengers were not aware of what they could be entitled to.

“They don’t say, ‘Hi, welcome to British Airways, by the way, if this flight is canceled due to any fault of ours, this is what we owe you. Please enjoy your flight, thank you,’” said airline expert George Hobica. “They don’t want people to know.”

Bear in mind that airlines are not responsible for payment if the circumstances of the disruption are beyond their control, a characterization that could be extremely broad. They might fight a claim and ultimately may not be held responsible.

European travel

Travelers flying to Europe on a European Union airline or flying out of the EU on any carrier are entitled to compensation of up to 600 euros, or currently about $670, for delays of more than three hours, cancellations that result in travelers arriving to their destinations within a specific time after their scheduled arrival, or being kicked off a flight because of overbooking, AirHelp says.

Disruptions outside of airlines’ control are not covered.

Flightright’s head of legal innovation, Alisha Andert, said in an email that this applies to U.S. airlines that leave an airport within the EU or flights that leave the United States if the carrier is an EU airline.

Hobica said for this reason, if there’s an option to book a flight from the United States to European Union countries, he recommends it.

Canadian flights

As of this month, passengers who are involuntarily bumped from a flight to, from or within Canada for reasons within an airline’s control are eligible for as much as $2,400 Canadian (or currently more than $1,800 U.S. dollars). Starting Dec. 15, passengers will be entitled to as much as about $1,000 Canadian if their flights are canceled or delayed by certain amounts of time, Flightright said.

The regulations are a big step up, AirHelp’s Nielsen said, but he cautioned that airlines have many excuses why they wouldn’t have to pay written into the code.

U.S. travel

First, the bad news. “The U.S. is one of the only Western or highly developed countries that don’t have strong air passenger rights for delays and cancellations,” Nielsen says.

According to the U.S. Department of Transportation, no law requires airlines to compensate passengers for delays or cancellations on domestic flights. But those who are bumped against their will can be eligible for compensation up to $1,350 — a more generous amount than the EU offers, Andert points out. The amount a passenger can get depends on how delayed they are in getting to their final destination and how much their original flight cost. If an airline arranges for an alternate flight that gets a passenger to their destination within an hour of their original time, they are not eligible for compensation.