An airline lies

Every fervent and loyal blog reader remembers how recently a plane from Wizzair was delayed for over three hours.
But that passengers can claim € 250 in that case based on a ruling of the European Court of Justice.

This claim was made and next Wizzair requested documents.
Like the boarding pass and the invoice.

And now an e-mail was received from Anita Oláh who works for Wizzair customer relations department.

She explains that

“An unexpected technical fault caused the delay, and under the relating regulations on operating air carriers the liability is excluded or reduced in cases where an event is caused by extraordinary circumstances which could not have been avoided even if all reasonable measures had been taken”.

Her conclusion?

“Since all the required strict service checks had been made regularly on that air carrier, this flight delay was outside of our control and we are not obliged to pay compensation”.

The only thing Wizzair is prepared to do is:

“ Please be informed that in accordance with our General Conditions of Carriage in case of delay we reimburse the unexpected expenses, as such meal, refreshment, 2 phone calls upon reception of related invoices”.

Obviously the response of Wizzair to the claim is to send the complaining and claiming customer into the woods to get lost.
A well known strategy for which consumer friendly websites are warning.

The essence of the denial of Wizzair is this:
“An unexpected technical fault caused the delay, and under the relating regulations on operating air carriers the liability is excluded or reduced in cases where an event is caused by extraordinary circumstances which could not have been avoided even if all reasonable measures had been taken”.

There are two aspects to it.

1/
Liability, according to Wizzair, is excluded or reduced in the case of an unexpected technical fault.
But this is a strange contradiction.
Because if there is an unexpected technical fault either Wizzair is responsible and has to pay compensation or not.
It will be excluded or included.
But it can never be excluded or reduced…
Because if liability can also be accepted as “reduced” this exclusion of liability is logically impossible.
In legal terms it is a contradiction and a flaw.

2/
What is worse though is that Wizzair lies to avoid paying compensation.
It says that when an unexpected technical fault causes the delay this can be seen as “an extraordinary circumstance”.
And if there is “an extraordinary circumstance” Wizzair is not responsible to pay compensation.
This now is simply not true.
A similar case has been brought to the European Court of Justice and this has made the verdict that an unexpected technical fault is definitely not “an extraordinary circumstance”.
Hence, there is official and binding legislation saying it is not and Wizzair pretends it is.


Anita Oláh, the new friend who works for Wizzair customer relations department, has received a new e-mail explaining the answer was not to the satisfaction of the customer and the European Court of Justice.
And the claim was made again that Wizzair by law is obliged to pay € 250 for a delay of over three hours.

There are two options now that are predicted.
Either Wizzair drops the case and no reply is received.
Or they make an offer of about € 100.

In both cases a next step will be made.
There are special agencies in Europe that handle these kinds of claims of air passengers.
For a fee of about 20 % they go after the airlines.
The claim now presented at Wizzair has been seen by one such agency and recognized as legal.
Wizzair has to pay, the experts say.
If not willingly, then the agency and its lawyers will do the job.