An airline shirking their obligations under the law is nothing new. Corporations are not people, they do not have morals or ethics, they will do whatever they can get away with to turn a buck. And by the way this doesn't necessarily mean that it is a flaw of the law either. After all, they want to minimize their liability when they screw up and so long as there is no penalty in them stringing you along, why not drag out the process? Now if there were timelines and strict penalties for such tactics, things would change.
Another example (related to passenger rights) was when Air Canada incorrectly claimed that my delay of 14 hours due crew scheduling was within their control but required for safety and thus ineligible for the $1,000 compensation I was owed under Canada's Air Passenger Protection Regulation. Ultimately, I complained the Canadian Transportation Agency and 2 years later they reviewed the case, the airline was forced to provide evidence, and I spent about 3 hours writing a rebuttal to their "defence" using the evidence they provided against them. Ultimately the agency ruled in my favour and ordered Air Canada to pay me $1,000 CAD (which they did 24 hours prior to the deadline they had to pay up). Was it worth me going through all those hoops to get what was owed? Perhaps. But I think there is some value in agencies like AirHelp, especially when the process can be slow and full of paperwork. My understanding (at least in Europe) is the process of "appealing" such decisions depends on the EU state and not all of them are as expedient as even Canada's slow complaint process. 70% of something is still better than 100% of nothing!
