55 hours of delay at departure for the 22 July 2016 flight from the Metz-Nancy airport to Palermo. The recent post by Transport Refund explains the rights for the hundred passengers on the flight to Palermo who had to wait at the airport from 10 am until midnight with no other information than a technical failure of the aircraft. Those who could not go home had to take hotel rooms. Some were forced to cancel their stay, the others finally left to Sicily the day after, late afternoon, 55 hours after the scheduled time …
The same day, in the opposite direction, 150 passengers from the East of France were also blocked in Palermo airport. After 11 hours of waiting, a flight Palermo – Milan was offered. Some have then linked the Basel-Mulhouse airport by bus in order to reach Alsace, others had to spend the night there, before taking a bus towards the Moselle.
The charterer is an Italian company, Aeroviaggi SpA, which operates in the tourism industry as an “integrated tour operator.” It organizes trips and holidays to Sicily and Sardinia, directly manages hostels with an integrated offer (Air transport, transfers, stay, activities).
The failed carrier is a Croatian airline, Limitless Airways.
Rights under the European regulation 261/2004 include:
– compensation of 250 Euros per person;
– refreshments and meals in a reasonable relation to the waiting time, two phone calls or sending two fax messages or emails, free of charge;
– hotel accommodation, where a stay of one or more nights becomes necessary;
– transport between the airport and the hotel;
– at the passenger’s choice, either re-routing under to comparable transport conditions to the final destination (at the earliest opportunity or at a later date subject to availability of seats) or reimbursement (within 7 days) of the ticket (for the parts of the journey not made, and for the parts already made if the flight is no longer serving any purpose in relation with the original travel plan).
The airline can only refuse compensation if the delay was due to extraordinary circumstances. A technical problem occurred on a plane cannot be regarded as an extraordinary circumstance unless that problem stems from events which, by their nature or origin, are not inherent in the normal exercise of the activity of the airline company concerned and are beyond its actual control.
