12

I had a flight cancellation by Easyjet on 19 July during the Crowdstrike outage. I applied for EU261 compensation and Easyjet has denied it claiming circumstances outside their control.

Do I have any recourse? Is there a way to appeal or should I give up?

Flight was from Copenhagen Denmark to Basel Switzerland.

More specifically, has anyone had success escalating to Alternate Dispute resolution forums like CEDR or the UK or other EU regulators? I'm trying to see if there is a precedent already established for Crowdstrike related claims or the equivalent of a class action lawsuit?

Of course, if the regulators have taken a public position that Crowdstrike related cancellations are exempt, then escalation could be moot.

Crazydre
  • 81,596
  • 17
  • 166
  • 355
curious_cat
  • 3,296
  • 2
  • 24
  • 37

4 Answers4

18

For a CPH-BSL flight, the point of escalation is Danish Trafikstyrelsen, which is free of charge.

If you abandoned the trip entirely, you're due a full refund regardless of extraordinary circumstances. If you continued your trip, you're due reimbursement of expenses for meals, accommodation and local transport in Copenhagen, to be claimed HERE by sending in receipts. If easyJet didn't offer re-routing within a suitable timeframe, and you re-routed yourself on a different airline as a result, that flight ticket is also to be reimbursed by easyJet.

Compensation (EUR 250) will depend on the circumstances for the cancellation, so again if that's been refused escalate to Trafikstyrelsen.

Crazydre
  • 81,596
  • 17
  • 166
  • 355
16

Depends on what exactly you mean by "compensation". A cursory google search seems to indicate that most "experts" agree that this was indeed outside what as "reasonably foreseeable and in the control of the airline" and no cash compensation is due. However, we won't know for sure until someone takes it to court and we get a verdict.

This being said, the airline has still "duty of care", which means full refund or rebooking, expenses for food, accommodation, alternative transportation etc. where applicable. We can expect the airlines to drag their feet on these claims so it might take months or years and a few court decision to fully sort this out.

Willeke
  • 63,333
  • 21
  • 165
  • 324
Hilmar
  • 119,360
  • 8
  • 205
  • 414
4

There are various companies that specialize in litigating EU261 claims. They typically work on a no-cure-no-pay basis, usually taking around a 30% cut. It is worth considering if you have no other options remaining: while it is a shame you have to give up part of your compensation, they take on the risk if the litigation is unsuccessful and they know the applicable laws very, very well.

Tom van der Zanden
  • 708
  • 5
  • 12
2

Just to summarise the solution steps:

Easyjet denied my compensation.

I've escalated to Aviation ADR for arbitration and also filed a complaint with the Danish regulator ( since the flight was from Copenhagen)

I will update here if I get any productive responses.

Next step would be UK small claims court I guess. If others have any tips on this I am glad to hear them.

Especially if there's a formal stand by an aviation regulator or a class action. Or precedents of others taking an airline to court over Crowdstrike and what the court ruled.

curious_cat
  • 3,296
  • 2
  • 24
  • 37