Who gets to keep the compensation?

[Memba]

This may well be hypothetical as airline hasn't agreed to anything yet but in the event that they do, who gets the money?

Situation as follows... DH and I took DC1 (18) and DC2 (15) overseas for a week for half term. Each DC brought a friend (same ages).

Both friends parents paid for their flights at approx £250 each. We paid for accommodation, car hire and activities/food/drink. They were effectively our guests.

Return flight was delayed by over 24hrs at fault of airline. I have checked and we are entitled to 600euros compensation per passenger. I have submitted claim on behalf all passengers.

In the event that the airline pays out, who gets the compensation?

Each passenger gets 600 Euros meaning friends parents make a profit on the holiday? Or we refund value of flight and keep the rest as contribution towards the cost of the trip.

FWIW DH and I are both financially disadvantaged by delay (self-employed) so actually lost income. The teenagers had no loss of earnings but got a free bonus night in a star hotel!

So, my AIBU is, in the event that airline cough up, do keep the majority of the compensation?

YANBU - refund flights to parent of each teen and keep the rest
YABU - give each set of parents the full €600

Or some other split?

Having read the thread I think people need to get off the OP’s back.

She has previously posted that she subsequently contacted the 2 sets of friends’ parents and put them in the picture about the possible 600 euros per child compo and the fact that the compensation could well be higher than the actual flight cost. The correct thing to do.

That said I would hope that the parents would tell OP to keep the cash as a thank you for giving my kid a fab holiday - I think one has already indicated as much. Or at very most only accept payment to cover cost of the £250 flight and tell OP to keep the rest.

If you booked all flights, any compensation returned goes back into your next holiday fund.

The compensation is for the delay suffered by the passengers - they were also passengers and they get the whole amount. Their parents paid for the flight, with the compensation in the ‘contract’ and their children were delayed. Of. Course you can’t steal it!
if you bought meals, drinks etc in the delay time for them you could subtract that, but nothing more, it’s fraudulent.
it doesn’t matter how financially disadvantaged you are, you cannot steal somebody else’s compensation for the delayed flight that they paid for! Obviously!

In case anybody is interested, the original EU Regulation 261/2004 only provided for fixed compensation when a flight was completely cancelled, not when it was delayed (though it was always payable in addition to the airline having to put you on the next available flight, so people weren’t stranded).

Then someone took an airline to court to argue that a long delay was just as inconvenient as a cancellation, partly because what had started to happen was that airlines would avoid officially cancelling in order to dodge paying the compensation.

It went all the way to the European Court of Justice and the ECJ held that, from that point onwards, any delay of 3 hours or more would give rise to a right to compensation.

The case is called Sturgeon (no relation to Nicola!)

It has resulted in huge expenses for airlines and they can’t buy insurance against this liability as it is supposed to act as a punitive measure if they don’t perform well. Huge amounts of admin and lots of no win no fee “claims farms” all across Europe that specialise in encouraging people to claim. Lots of court time taken up dealing with cases that are brought by people who didn’t really suffer much inconvenience at all.

But as long as it’s the law then fair play, I would still claim it myself if the opportunity presented.

I would back a change in the law though. It’s been proposed and consulted on in the UK for domestic flights and there is a legislative project to revise the system under way, but it won’t happen in this government. For international flights, even post-Brexit, there are too many complicating factors for change to happen any time soon. Only hope is new EU legislation and no sign of that on the horizon.

600 each

Exactly this! As the paying parent I’m not inconvenienced. My kid had a great time and lost nothing financially or work etc.
why should I profit? I’d want you to take the extra beyond the ticket money and even then I’m not sure I even need that.

morally / legally you should offer me the full amount but I think any reasonable person would not want to take it.

I don’t see why my child regardless of age needs the money and I’d hope they’d be respectful enough to see that they’d spent nothing, lost nothing and had a great time so any payout would not need to go to them.

@Thedm wind your neck in. You’ve clearly not read the OP’s replies/comments.

It gives airlines an incentive not to fuck up. Delays are often out of their control, but very often not

As I understood from way back when 261 was introduced the actual original intent was to incentivise airlines to not cancel flights at the last minute simply because the sector wasn't going to turn a profit....

There were rumours that was exactly what some LoCos were doing in the early days of Eurpean deregulation and the politicians in Brussels took a dim view...

Problem now as many see it is the law was overly simplistically drafted or codified (how exactly do you define a "fuck up".) and also it does appear at times the amount of compensation triggered is way out of proportion to the inconvenience actually caused to many passengers.

261 also probably to some extent hasn't helped customer service in the event of those delays that do happen. There's no point in an airline employing lots of reps/ground staff at all their outstations who are in position to smooth things over when everybody is going to lawyer up at the 3 hour 1 minute point regardless, leaving the company on the hook for potentially the best part of 100k total comp on many flights.

The airline might as well save on wages (so the lack of ground staff these days shouldn't be a surprise)..and of course down the road the comp will get recovered in ticket prices...so there go your "cheap" fares next season.

At least partially as a result of the above as @KingsleyBorder says, revising the law has been discussed.

Surely the refund & compensation goes to whoever paid for the original flight ?
I can’t see why you’d think otherwise

Cost of flights back and that’s being generous, seeing as they got to go on a lovely holiday anyway!

I’d give them back the flight cost only

I wouldn’t give them anything

If my employer pays for the flight, but the delay affects me and my time, then I want the compensation. The employer still got their flight, just later.

It may be that in this case the teens weren't really inconvenienced but we shouldn't assume that you have to work to suffer losses.
They could miss an exam, a driving test, a concert, a family birthday a school production etc.

Because it doesn’t. Law and regulations are clear. It goes to the traveller, each individual traveller. It does not go to whoever paid for the flights. Even if it did, it still wouldn’t go to the OP as she didn’t pay for their flights.

So you would steal? The compensation payment is from the airline to each individual traveller. You would actually have to commit fraud to get it, but claiming on their behalf and taking their permission.

@Thedm get a grip, some people take themselves far too seriously

I think the parents would be absolute CF if they didn't insist on giving the compensation to you.

I wouldn't think much of someone who wanted to profit from this, especially as you've been so generous treating their child on holidays.

I'd give them the cost of the flight £250, keep the rest, you covered all their costs for holiday. An extra night in a hotel wasn't a hardship, no way I'd be handing a teenager €600 euros when they had a free holiday

If I was one of the parents who had paid for flights, I'd be over the moon with a refund, I'd refuse to take any extra you were the one delayed with 4 teenagers and had been so generous in covering all of the other holiday expenses. Depending on financial circs at the time I may well even have said for you to keep it all

I think if I was the parent of one of the kids and found out you'd applied for compensation in my child's name and then kept it, I'd be pretty annoyed. If you turn the situation on its head, ask how you'd feel if a parent used your child's name to do the same?

If you're struggling for cash then yes I can totally see why it's tempting! But equally I wouldn't see it as my money. I think my conscience would nag me too much.

We had a similar situation in August. We have a holiday home in Spain. Wd invited our adult son and a mate to stay with us for a few days in August. My DH booked the flights.

We were treating our son anyway but his mate was going to repay us later - when he had the money! That was fine with us.

Their return flight to UK was delayed by over 6 hours which meant compensation could be claimed. My DH made the claim - as he had paid for the flights. Amazingly it was paid within days.

The compensation fully covered the cost of the flights (paid for by DH) with enough left over to give our son and his mate £50 each. So our son’s mate paid nothing and got £50 too!
We were all happy with this.

The compensation fully covered the cost of the flights (paid for by DH) with enough left over to give our son and his mate £50 each. So our son’s mate paid nothing and got £50 too!
We were all happy with this.

I bet you were, and I don't blame you at all for claiming, it's your rights etc

That said unless your son's mate lost out financially due to the delay that's an example of exactly why there's more and more lobbying going on behind the scenes to reform the legislation, one change being proposed is that the compensation paid more accurately reflects the actual financial loss a passenger has suffered, rather than some arbitrary sum.

Talk to some still working for some airlines and they'll tell you on some flights the prospect of a lengthy delay is welcomed by many of those who are starting their holiday's in the manner of a lottery win, rather than being a cause for disappointment and/or annoyance.

But you would have to commit fraud. You wouldn’t be filling in an application for yourself. You’re filling it in for other people and saying they gave you permission. It is the definition of fraud. To keep the money, without telling them first and asking/hoping they offer it, is theft. It isn’t your compensation.

Likely if they agree to the compensation the money/cheque will be paid direct to each individual surely?

@Thedm I don’t understand why she is applying for them, she doesn’t have parental or other legal responsibility does she? Bit silly really isn’t it. She should have handed details over to the parents to act as they so wished.