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Lufthansa plane at Munich Airport: "Airlines callously exploit the inexperience of customers"
Photo: Sven Hoppe / dpa
With a plethora of canceled flights and disputes over who will be reimbursed, a very high number of passengers are turning to legal services for help.
According to the industry, many passengers feared that the airlines would shy away from refunds, compensation or assumption of costs.
The number of inquiries about canceled flights has increased almost six-fold from 372 in June 2019 to 2126 in the current month, reports the flight rights service provider EUflight, which buys the claims of airline customers.
The number of passengers who complained about the lack of reimbursement "is skyrocketing at the moment," says the flight rights portal Flightright.
ADAC legal advice is also reporting more and more cases.
From the point of view of flight law experts, the airlines have broken the trust of customers.
"Airlines callously exploit the inexperience of their customers," says EUflight Managing Director Lars Watermann.
With this behavior, however, they would have "successfully supported" the business model of legal service providers.
Many seem to have lost confidence that the airline will settle the damage.
Passengers used to contact the airline first, but now some passengers call his company from the plane, says Watermann, before the airline has a chance to settle the claim.
Customers have had the experience of being turned away by the airlines.
Trouble with Lufthansa
The range of annoyances in dealing with canceled flights is long.
Some airlines do not offer a replacement flight, although they are obliged to do so in the event of a cancellation.
Others offered alternative flights, sending customers "halfway across the country," notes EUflight manager Watermann.
A flight from Munich to Cologne, for example, is offered with a change in London.
Customers don't have to accept something like that, but many do.
Lufthansa has developed a particularly bad reputation among the lawyers of the law enforcers.
She is said to be a "vehement refusal to pay".
Even justified compensation payments would be "repelled with all sorts of advanced arguments," says Flightright's chief lawyer Oskar de Felice.
Lufthansa also attracts negative attention in the legal advice of the ADAC.
Some airlines took the chance and waited for a court hearing, "probably in the hope that customers will not bother about it," says a spokesman for the automobile club.
In principle, every valid claim at Ryanair ends up in court and Lufthansa hardly ever pays out of court either.
EUflight manager Watermann finds such treatment of travel customers incomprehensible.
In doing so, Lufthansa risks a “loss of image through customer-unfriendly behavior”.
Even Lufthansa's low-cost subsidiary, Eurowings, settles claims from passengers relatively easily, several legal service providers confirm.
Especially since the EU has clearly regulated compensation payments and reimbursements for canceled flights.
"No real choice"
Documents from court cases from this spring show how Lufthansa is struggling to settle claims from its customers.
In the case of a canceled flight, a Lufthansa customer asked for a refund of the price, a legally required alternative flight was apparently not offered, as was shown after a lawsuit in court.
The airline found that the customer had exercised his “right to choose” by asking for a refund.
The court ironed out this handling: passengers would have to receive information about other possible promotions if a flight was canceled.
If this is not done, the plaintiff has “no real choice”, this is a breach of duty that entails a claim for damages.
Another Lufthansa passenger had a flight delayed by more than 23 hours and had to seek compensation in court.
Lufthansa did not want to bear the costs of 37.50 euros for food and drinks during this time, denying the "necessity of the alleged expenses".
The court finally obliged the group to pay because there was a right to reimbursement of such costs.
Lufthansa is not entitled to “decide on the plaintiff’s eating habits”.
Lufthansa "cannot understand" the criticism of its approach, as it explains when asked.
The number of open ticket refunds is "normal" from before the pandemic, and there is "no significant backlog".
The service center records an extraordinarily high number of calls, which is why there are longer waiting times that are being worked on "at full speed".
