Swiss Air

Post_Office_Pete

Hello all,
Some words of advice would be very helpful.
Concerning my return flight to Manchester from Zurich.

One hour into the flight and it was recalled to Zurich, at the time it didn't make sense, an hour to Manchester or an hour to Zurich and we returned to Zurich.
The reason given was the parts/engineers were in Zurich to fix the problem and not Manchester.

The claim for compensation was refused on the following grounds:

"Your flight LX380 on 9 September 2022, unfortunately, had to be cancelled due to an unexpected flight safety shortcoming. On behalf of SWISS and its cooperation partners, I apologise for the inconvenience you had as a result.

This flight irregularity was caused by an unexpected flight safety shortcoming affecting the engine. For this reason, the aircraft had to undergo an immediate technical inspection and to be removed from further operations.

Safety is SWISS first priority. We consider the described flight cancellation necessary and the irregularity to be extraordinary circumstances. These could not have been avoided even if all reasonable measures had been taken. Therefore, I must deny your claim for compensation in application of regulation EC261/2004."

Is it a reasonable measure to have engineers/parts in Manchester?  Or should I try another angle?

Appreciate any advice.

Alan

eskbanker

The phrase "unexpected flight safety shortcoming" is used by airlines who see it as allowing them to claim extraordinary circumstances, but it's been challenged successfully in court, notably in van der Lans v KLM, which concluded that:

a technical problem, such as that at issue in the main proceedings, which occurred unexpectedly, which is not attributable to poor maintenance and which was also not detected during routine maintenance checks, does not fall within the definition of ‘extraordinary circumstances’ within the meaning of that provision

That case also refers to the earlier Wallentin-Hermann one, which is often referred to as establishing the principle that technical issues can't be relied on as extraordinary circumstances, so worth reading up on those and constructing a challenge to Swiss accordingly.

Personally I don't think that it would be reasonable to assert that every destination of an airline should maintain engineers and parts capable of engine repairs (etc), so IMHO it makes more sense to challenge the fundamental issue rather than the symptom....