EUclaim has announced that their law firm Lavelle Coleman has commenced a claim for compensation at Uxbridge County Court on behalf of 23 British Airways passengers who suffered flights delays and cancellations.

The passengers were affected by the cancellation of flight BA 0502 on the 14th March 2008 that was scheduled to fly from Heathrow to Lisbon.

EUclaim currently represents several hundred claimants who have suffered flight cancellations or long delays whilst travelling with British Airways. Some of these claims, relating to 88 British Airways flights, date back as far as 2006.

“British Airways has produced numerous reasons for cancellations and for the non payment of their passengers’ claims - these range from insufficient cabin crew and staff sickness to technical problems.  Quite frankly these are, in most cases, not extraordinary circumstances and the airline is simply hiding behind these excuses. We have repeatedly asked BA to give the real reasons behind the cancellations but they have refused to do so,” said Hendrik Noorderhaven CEO, EUclaim. 

The claim follows a damning Dispatches documentary, The Trouble with British Airways? on UK’s Channel 4 in which EUclaim were featured.

EUclaim says that in most cases airlines will reject claims made by individual passengers, stating ‘extraordinary circumstances’ as the cause of the delay or cancellation.  More often than not this is not the case.  They say it is virtually impossible for passengers to object to airline statements about technical circumstances.  The burden of proof concerning a cancellation and whether it is caused by extraordinary circumstances rests with the operating air carrier.

EUclaim clams to have submitted hundreds of BA passenger claims to the airline but as yet have not had a proper response from them.  As a result, the company has decided to take legal action and have handed over a number of these claims to their Dublin-based law firm, Lavelle Coleman, in a bid to ensure that British Airways passengers who have suffered flight cancellations or long delays whilst travelling with the airline receive the financial compensation that they are entitled to under EU Law.

“Sadly, passengers are unaware of their rights - they go online to claim compensation from an airline and their claim is rejected - most give up - it’s just too expensive to take legal action as an individual,” added Noorderhaven. “We started EUclaim so that we could make passengers aware of their consumer rights and have already helped thousands receive their lawful compensation. The process is quite simple, passengers can check for themselves whether they are entitled to compensation on our site www.euclaim.co.uk. “
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