Victory against Easyjet by Niall and Aileen Caldwell - denied boarding due to queues

NiallC

Niall Caldwell here.

I thought you might like to know about a legal battle which myself and my wife have just won against Easyjet, which we think might be significant step forward for consumer protection under the EU “denied boarding” regulations.


This result has been covered this week by stories in the Daily Mail, Scotsman, Metro, Daily Record and STV.


This issue has been a real hot potato, with airlines claiming the EU protection only applies to cases of overbooking. EU judgements last year extended that to much wider interpretation, including “other operational reasons” – but does that apply to missed flights due to excessive queues?

On Monday, the judgement of the Edinburgh Sherrif Court was announced: we were “denied boarding” due to excessive queue length for both bag drop and security, for an Easyjet flight from Sicily to the UK.


To help others get what’s due to them, I’ve shared my experience on my new website: difficultjet.org

I'm thrilled to see how much coverage my case is getting. I didn’t do it for the money, but for the principal, and to get justice for thousands of others. And, to be honest, the personal challenge of becoming an expert in Air Law and beating Easyjet’s lawyers at their own game!


Niall

NiallC

I think the worst part of Easyjet's behaviour in my case was their cynical attempt to have the proceedings moved to London, because (shamelessly!) they denied that Scottish courts have jurisdiction over their operations.

They argued that Luton is the location of their Head Office (when they also have 100s of people employed in their “Scottish HQ” in Edinburgh), and Gatwick was the destination of our flight (when in fact we had connecting Easyjet flight back to Edinburgh).

I thought this was cynical and undignified from what claims to be “Scotland’s Largest Airline”. So, the millions of Scottish passengers who travel abroad via Easyjet’s hubs in Gatwick and Luton, have no recourse to Scottish Justice and should travel 450 miles to persue a small claim?

Of course, Easyjet knew that moving proceedings to London would have put a big barrier in my way. And with them providing daily services from Edinburgh to Luton, they would stand to make profit from my airfare if I did make it down!

I had to spend a whole day in court just to establish the Edinburgh Sherriff Court had jurisdiction, in detailed technical arguments over the meaning of the Montreal Protocol. Luckily for me, this ploy really annoyed the Scottish judge, who from that point seemed to become quite determined he was going to teach them a lesson.

Vauban

Many congratulations on your win. I read about it on the papers. Well done!

You will find lots of us on this forum who - not being lawyers or having any real industry experience - became quite expert in this field, and we able to beat the airline in court: even when they employed very expensive barristers! And we did this not for the money truthfully but because of the poor treatment initially and then the outrage at being lied to and bullied when we tried to make a legitimate claim. It feels very satisfying though when you win, doesn't it?

I was surprised to hear easyJet arguing you had no right to bring your case to a Scottish court. In law, this is very clear. The question of which national court has jurisdiction over a 261/04 claim was determined in an ECJ ruling in 2009 (Rehder v Air Baltic). You can find that judgement here:

http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?isOldUri=true&uri=CELEX:62008CJ0204

Anyhow, well done again!

richardw

Well done you!

richardw

Great news!

It's over four years since I won and still love to hear about other winners.

Tyzap

Congratulations!

I was following your case and you deserved your win.

Hope you'll stick around and help out here on the odd occasion.

Well done!

howticklediam

Well done!

For anyone who has the misfortune of travelling via Grenoble airport during ski season, this is a welcome victory.

For those who don't know, Grenoble is the airport from hell. But it must be cheap because all the operators like to use it.

It's about five times too small for the amount of traffic it serves so you queue to check in in a disorganised melee that starts outside the entrance; hopeful that you are in the correct queue. But the air-side hangar is even more undersized, so after check-in they make you queue in a fenced-in spiral that consumes the whole terminal and acts as a holding pen to avoid the departure lounge bursting. After about three hours you get through and there is nowhere to sit, but you usually go quite quickly onto the plane because they are all late by then.

You can spot the seasoned travellers because they wait outside and listen for their names to be called, then they get rushed passed the queue to avoid holding the plane longer than three hours.

If anyone is in any doubt that air operators will treat their customers like !!!! if they can get away with it just go to Grenoble on a Saturday during the ski season.

JPears

Must have been hell this year when it snowed heavily at 11am on a saturday this Feburary

NiallC

Dear all

Thanks for your congratulations! It does feel good to beat them, especially when they behave so shoddily.

Regarding jurisdiction, I spent a whole day in front of the sherrif arguing this one out. I have added description of the detail of my arguments to the Background section of my website (difficultjet.org). Please refer there for references to legal authorities. So far I have only uploaded those files relating to Jurisdiction; in time, I plan to add scans of most of the court documents for the Denied Boarding case too.

Thanks Vaubn, I didn't know about Rehder vs Air Baltic. It agrees that it is the Montreal Convention which dictates jurisdiction, but it doesn't seem to consider the case of a connecting flight, which was the essence of our case. The Sherriff in our case decided that the "final destination" is what matters, and that each flight in a journey comprising multiples flights is not a seperable (even if the airline claims that it doesn't operate connecting services). We spent considerable time on the matter as described in the notes on my website.

I don't consider myself an expert on Air Law, more that I have earned my Boy Scout "Legal Eagle" badge. But I have certainly discovered that a few late nights in front of the computer, a well-structured argument and a bit of "performance art" are all it takes to overpower a relatively junior lawyer who is trying to defend the indefensible and hasn't been given much time to research the case. Also, that (at least in my case) I found the court quite accomodating about my lack of training and knowledge of procedures.

I am never going skiing in Grenoble though!

Mark2spark

That's a potentially valuable piece of info Niall, that 'follow on' flights booked with - say - easyjet are counted as connecting flights. They clearly say they are not when you book.
Congrats on your victory!