Can I submit a claim that has already been rejected by the airline?
Friday, September 13, 2019
Yes, you can! The short version: You can have a professional service like Flight-Delayed verify the airline’s rejection and handle the process. We’ll ensure that the airline pays what you’re owed. Let’s jump right into it:
Sometimes things don’t go as planned when travelling. When that happens,airports and travelling by aeroplane can be challenging, especially when you navigate the process of claiming compensation if your flight has been cancelled or delayed. Our work consists of dealing with such challenges on a day to day basis. Rest assured, we are happy to assist you with any difficulties you may encounter in order to achieve the best possible outcome for you. In other words, we ensure that you get compensated for your flight’s disruption!
Claiming compensation for a flight delay, cancellation or overbooking: a complicated process
As you may be aware by now, you are entitled to claim compensation under EU Regulation 261/2004 if your flight arrived with a delay greater than three hours, your flight was cancelled abruptly and you’ve reached your destination with a delay greater than two hours or if you’ve been denied boarding without a valid reason. Other conditions apply so don’t forget to check your flight for free if you are not certain if you have the right to claim compensation.
Passengers, more often than not, request the compensation they are entitled to from the airline only to be turned away almost immediately without reason or proof. If the company actually replies, they will quickly argue that the reason for the disruption was outside of their control and is, therefore, an extraordinary circumstance. This, however, may not be true or, at least, it has been assessed incorrectly.
Why has my claim been rejected by the airline?
Airlines reject claims simply because they want to protect their bottom-lines. Most of the time, airlines will reject claims even though they are perfectly valid. Often, they excuse their rejection as an ‘extraordinary circumstance’. Granted, the regulation does state that events outside of the airline’s sphere of influence, like political unrest or natural disasters, should be considered extraordinary and let the airline off the hook. However, airlines will frequently excuse not paying compensation through statements that are not 100% factual; such as:
- The aircraft had a ‘hidden manufacturing defect’
- The staff operating the flight suddenly fell sick
- Staff operating the flight exceeded hours of work
Some of the reasons provided do fall directly under the responsibility of the airline. Weather conditions in previous legs of the aeroplane’s schedule can also arguably fall under their responsibility. So, if you the airline has already rejected your claim, you can still be entitled to compensation. Around 98% of claims are rejected which means that only 2% of compensation claims are actually paid out without court action.
Why should I submit a claim if the airline has already rejected it?
Even if the airline has repeatedly argued that you are not entitled to compensation, you may still be eligible to receive it. If the airline has brushed you off with a short and unclear excuse, getting a specialised service to have a look at your claim will be the difference between getting paid out and receiving nothing. More often than not, airlines will not pay claims until a letter before court action is sent to them and, furthermore, airlines tend to be less than transparent when it comes to assessing the circumstances that have affected a flight. If you are unsure about submitting a claim again, we can advise you to do so despite the rejection by the airline. Remember that it’s your right to be compensated for a flight delay or cancellation.
To put it shortly, we can sue the airline if necessary.
Submit your claim for a flight delay or cancellation before it expires!
One thing we need to add is the fact that claims do expire. That means that there are statutes of limitations regarding your claim for compensation. In the UK and Ireland, you have up to 6 years, starting on the day that your disruption happened, to claim compensation. For all technical matters, a court case needs to be started before the expiry date of your claim for it to still be valid.
Flight-Delayed has the means to assess your claim
Our team of experts will use our database and legal expertise to determine the validity of your claim. They will redact and send all the necessary letters to the airline. If, for example, they claim that an extraordinary circumstance has occurred, we’ll thoroughly verify their arguments and the information provided. If necessary, we will start legal proceedings and take the airline to court.
We’ll claim your compensation under a no win no fee agreement and the best of all is that our 25% win fee covers all possible legal costs associated with claiming your compensation. Check your flight and enforce your rights!
After you have submitted a claim with us, Flight-delayed.co.uk will assess what options we have. In some cases, we may decide to skip some steps, based on the specific situation and the airline's initial response. Through your personal login account, you can easily track the progress of your claim and the steps Flight-delayed.co.uk is taking on your behalf.
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