Ryanair Claims 2018 - Email to Customer/A Warning!

itsjacksonn

Good morning all,

Wanted to share some words of warning regarding claims for the 2018 strikes that Ryanair are having to pay out for after a lengthy battle in the courts.

If you are like me and had a flight cancelled back in 2018 due to the strikes, you'll have been waiting some time to claim compensation under EU261. Ryanair recently stopped contesting in the courts after a defeat in the Court of Appeals. I received an email yesterday from them, citing my entitlement to claim compensation. I believe the form that is linked is designed to mislead people into waiving their compensation per passenger and accepting compensation, to the level in EU261 per booking. The wording on the form is thus...

"By completing this you accept that EU261 Compensation will be issued per booking in full and final settlement of all claims passengers listed in the form may have against Ryanair under Article 7 of EU Regulation 261/2004 in relation to this booking. By accepting the compensation, all passengers concerned therefore waive any right to compensation against Ryanair under the EU Regulation 261/2004 or any national provision in respect of UK-departing flights cancelled or delayed due to certain union-led strikes in 2018 and undertake to withdraw any pending proceedings in this respect, if any."

As an example, in my circumstance I booked for 7 passengers, on a trip from Manchester to Cologne. I should be entitled to €250 per passenger, 7 x €250 = €1750. However this wording suggests that I will only get €250 for a claim, waiving my right to the remainder.

I would suggest that people in this situation refrain from filling out the claim form and pursue via other avenues to get your full compensation you are rightfully owed. This will probably involve writing to Rynair (they refuse to accept I even had a booking on Webchat or over the phone) and then raising with AviationADR.

I have emailed the details to MSE News and BBC Watchdog, as this is a blatant attempt to mislead consumers. So hopefully that will yield something.

Cheers,
MJ

eskbanker

itsjacksonn said:

"By completing this you accept that EU261 Compensation will be issued per booking in full and final settlement of all claims passengers listed in the form may have against Ryanair under Article 7 of EU Regulation 261/2004 in relation to this booking. By accepting the compensation, all passengers concerned therefore waive any right to compensation against Ryanair under the EU Regulation 261/2004 or any national provision in respect of UK-departing flights cancelled or delayed due to certain union-led strikes in 2018 and undertake to withdraw any pending proceedings in this respect, if any."

As an example, in my circumstance I booked for 7 passengers, on a trip from Manchester to Cologne. I should be entitled to €250 per passenger, 7 x €250 = €1750. However this wording suggests that I will only get €250 for a claim, waiving my right to the remainder.

[...]

I have emailed the details to MSE News and BBC Watchdog, as this is a blatant attempt to mislead consumers. So hopefully that will yield something.

It's possible that you've interpreted it correctly but I'd argue that it isn't as blatant as you seem to think - IMHO the reference to compensation 'per booking' doesn't actually imply that this is as opposed to per passenger as such, but is simply likely to be signifying that claims will be dealt with one booking at a time (for all concerned on that booking), which should still mean €1750 if there are seven passengers involved.  Is there something else that's led you to believe that you'd only get €250 in total?

itsjacksonn

Specifically the part that says "By accepting the compensation, all passengers concerned therefore waive any right to compensation against Ryanair under the EU Regulation 261/2004...".

If I am being paid for all 7 passengers, their rights under EU261 have already been fully exercised; so why would I need to waive any rights?

My view is that this is a craftily worded small print and I won't be claiming for the time being but I'd be really interested to hear from people who have claimed via this form and the details of the amounts they received.

eskbanker

I can't speak from experience of that particular claim, but am still not reading into it what you are - in the context of settling a range of claims, some of which will have entailed initiating legal action, it still seems to me that this wording is intended to convey full and final settlement of all such claims, rather than seeking to constrain the value of them, and hence the reference to withdrawing pending proceedings later in the sentence.