Cancelled flight, airline KLM refusing to pay delayed flight compensation though

eskbanker

larryharvey said:

eskbanker said:

larryharvey said:

KLM defended, not based on this being the incorrect law though - indeed their defence says nothing about the wrong stature being used, in fact they quote directly from it to make a point that said statute states "no compensation is due if I was notified at least 14 days in advance" - and they say I was given said notice! They've lied. That cannot be disputed because of the emails I have from them.

Just to go back to this point, of course it can be disputed - you can't prove they didn't send you an email more than 14 days before the flight and can't even prove that you didn't receive one then either for that matter, in that you generally can't prove a negative, i.e. producing an email sent (or just received?) 12 days before scheduled departure doesn't disprove one being sent 14+ days before.

Civil courts will work on the balance of probabilities and if KLM can produce some sort of evidence of sending an email (as required by article 5(4)) then that's likely to carry more weight than an unsupportable assertion that it wasn't sent.

If KLM were unable to demonstrate giving you notice then it seems unlikely that they'd reject your claim and then choose to defend a court claim, but it's still worth getting to the bottom of why the court case was struck out rather than guessing....

Actually I have the email they sent regarding changing the connecting flight. nothing in there about cancelling the first flight though. So obviously there was a system error. You don't send two separate emails when it is one set of flights. 

Not sure I'm following your logic here - you have an email that only deals with part of the story, but you feel that this somehow proves that there couldn't have been another one that covers the rest of it, and believe that this supports a conclusion that "obviously there was a system error"?  Have you got hold of a copy of whatever KLM are telling the court they sent you?

larryharvey

They've not sent anything to the court as there is nothing to send - and I have been ignored repeatedly when challenging them to prove it.

eskbanker

larryharvey said:

They've not sent anything to the court as there is nothing to send - and I have been ignored repeatedly when challenging them to prove it.

But they'll presumably have stopped communicating other than via the formal legal channels once you took them to court?  In other words, if you succeed in getting the case reinstated, then that'll be your opportunity to substantiate your assertions and challenge theirs, but first of all you need to reverse the strike-out.  I'm assuming that their lawyers are somewhat more experienced and hence being able to get the case struck out, due to the inadequate particulars of claim, without having to go as far as discussing its merits, but it would seem odd for the airline to incur the expense of defending a case if they weren't confident in their position, presumably having dealt with many thousands of similar claims.  I don't think you've clarified yet but are you suing them in England, Wales or the Netherlands?