I guess it depends on your definition of maintenance. Is a bust tyre on landing unscheduled maintenance?
Generally under the EU261 scheme almost all unscheduled maintenance is deemed within the control of the airline and thus eligible for meals, hotels and the monetary entitlement. And I use the word entitlement when it comes to delays because it is technically not compensation. For it to be considered compensation legally, you would have to make an argument about how much each traveller's time is worth (i.e. a lawyer delayed by an hour has "lost" more than a student or starving artist). Here they're just saying it's something you get from the airline irrespective of how much or even whether it was a hassle for you. Indeed, I have enjoyed some delays yet received the 600 Euros entitlement under EU261.
And that would be the EU/UK261 model. The canadian model would say an immediate safety issue arising on the day of travel is excluded from their scheme.
Yes this is one of the flaws of that law. Hopefully in the coming years that gets addressed to make it more in line with European rules. Keep in mind in Europe there have been instances where crew have literally died moments before a flight was scheduled to depart and European courts have all ruled it's not an extraordinary circumstance and thus the full entitlement under EU261 plus reimbursement for meals and hotels are necessary.
Given the Aussie airlines are quite limiting in their definitions of ‘within’ and ‘outside’ of their control, I was surprised to see VA include ‘unscheduled’ maintenance. I assume it’s a type and they mean ‘scheduled’.
What no one (to my knowledge at least) has talked about with regards to the European law, is that irrespective of the cause, the airlines always must provide a duty of care. What this means is that even if there's a thunderstorm and it's raining like hell outside, and thus completely outside the control of the airline, the airline must still offer a duty of care, meaning meals and hotel. With Qantas, if you encounter a delay due to a weather issue, you're on your own, out of pocket. Indeed, when a thunderstorm passed through Brisbane cancelling my flight (the last one of the day to Sydney), I had to pay out of pocket for my hotel with Qantas only willing to reimburse a small fraction of the astronomical price. Had this been the EU, that hotel would've been paid for by them in full, no questions asked.
I know all that
The issue all of these scenarios then include the typical onus then on the customer to chase up the remedy by contacting the call centre. Why? If its in your control you hand me my sheet of rights and the manned desk I go to address it there and then
Technically, under the European Rules there is no requirement to hand you your rights on a piece of paper. If that was law, it would be nearly impossible to enforce in any way since every airport in the world and any flight in the world could potentially be subject to these rules. To give you an example, I was flying from Frankfurt back to Sydney, connecting in Helsinki and Singapore. I get all the way to Singapore only to find my final flight with Qantas got delayed by 14 hours due to crew. In all the communication I received from Qantas and on the ground in Singapore, I wasn't told what my rights were under EU261. Indeed, Qantas sent me an erroneous email stating there were limits on how much I could spend on meals and hotels (which is a lie since EU261 says you just pay for it). I was actually even more surprised that for international flights like these they would suggest such limits, it's really cute of them, since again under Montreal Convention, they're on the hook for about $10,000 CAD in damages, which would cover just about any flight and hotel you want.
In any event, I got home, and the first thing I did was apply for EU261 plus reimbursement for the hotel and ground transfer (meals were included at the Accor property I was staying at).
True, but I think the EU and US schemes can provide strong guidance on this particular issue and can be codified pretty easily.
The US scheme is very light on details. For instance, there are no rules in the US requiring airlines to rebook you on the next flight, to provide monetary compensation or hotels. Yes, airlines were required to stipulate what they will offer customers and it's even available on a nice dashboard where you can compare the airlines and their policies, but that's it. There's no codified rules that if this then that as is the case in Canada or Europe. The one thing the US does well though is overbooking and involuntary denied boarding which is formulaic and strictly enforced with the airline being forced to pay out the monies at the airport.
Without an EU261 type of law, anything is just hot air.
Correct. Unless there are actually actionable items, it's all rhetoric. The EU and to some extent the Canadian laws spell out exactly what the airline must do. For instance, under the Canadian rules if a major airline (that is an airline that transported over 2 million passengers per year) cancels a flight, they must rebook you on another flight or refund your money in full, passenger's choice. Rebooking depends on the cause of the disruption, if it is deemed within the control of the airline (i.e. everything from unscheduled maintenance to crew) they must rebook you on their own flight departing within 9 hours of when you were supposed to depart or failing that they must rebook you on the next flight operated by any airline. And when they say next flight they mean it. So if the next flight only has seats in business class they must rebook you into that free of charge and simply eat the costs. Plus they must provide meals and hotel (if an overnight stay is required). For things outside their control like weather or strikes, it's 48 hours instead of 9 hours and no hotel or meals are required (a weak point in the law).
-RooFlyer88
