Frankfurt/Main (dpa/tmn)
Sometimes the devil is in the details. Because connecting individual flights did not count as a composite flight, two air passengers did not receive compensation payments.
Even if they are offered by the same airline and are timed to coincide: If travelers book two single flights, they have no right to compensation if they miss the second flight due to a delay in the first flight. This is shown by a judgment by the District Court of Frankfurt am Main, to which the German Lawyers Association (DAV) refers. (Ref.: 32 C 586/21 (90))
The case: It was about flights from Lanzarote via London to Frankfurt. The first flight landed around two hours late in the British capital. Then the two passengers had to check in their baggage again. Ultimately, they missed the plane to Frankfurt. They had to rebook and arrived much later than planned.
The passengers demanded compensation from the airline for the delayed carriage and wanted to be reimbursed for the additional costs for the rebooking. For this they referred to the EU Air Passenger Rights Regulation.
Single flights with their own booking numbers
They were unsuccessful in court. The booking via the portal gave the impression that it was part of a continuous connection, according to the Verdict.
But the passengers were sent separate booking numbers and individual prices for the two routes – from this they could have concluded that the airline was treating the flights as independent connections and not as feeder and connecting flights.
According to the court, a wording in the airline’s terms and conditions (GTC) is decisive: There it stipulated that it is a “point-to-point” airline and in principle does not offer any connecting flights – unless they are expressly stated as such in the booking be. The latter is not evident here, the court reasoned.
No right to compensation
Therefore, the court considered the individual compounds separately. As a result, there were no claims for compensation: the first flight landed around two hours later than planned. According to the regulation, passengers are only entitled to compensation payments after a delay of three hours. The court dismissed the lawsuit.
Conclusion: If you book two individual flights at the same time in one booking process, you have to be careful, explains the DAV legal portal “anwaltauskunft.de”. You book two separate individual connections within the meaning of the passenger rights regulation: There is then no compensation for a missed “connecting flight”.
