In February, I flew with Iberia from Lisbon to Vienna via Madrid. The first flight arrived just over half an hour late, causing me to miss my connecting flight as Iberia had sold me a very short 45-minute connection. By the time I disembarked the first flight and ran to the next gate, Iberia had closed the flight to Vienna.
The next flight from Madrid to Vienna wasn’t until the next morning, so Iberia ended up putting me up in a hotel overnight. I arrived at my destination more than 12 hours late.
As this was a trip within the European Union, I’m theoretically entitled to compensation from Iberia under the EU261 regulation. Iberia even states this on its website (as it’s legally required to do). But actually claiming this compensation has so far proven almost impossible.
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The European Union mandates compensation for lengthy delays
Given that…
- Both flights were on one ticket,
- The distance between Lisbon and Vienna makes this a “Type 2” flight,
- The misconnection caused me to arrive in Vienna more than three hours behind schedule, and
- Iberia’s delay to the first flight was not due to extraordinary circumstances,
The amount that Iberia is theoretically liable to pay me according to the laws of the European Union is €400, which is around AUD700.
For what it’s worth, Iberia never provided me with information about my rights under EU261 during my trip – something it is also legally required to do. But that doesn’t mean the airline gets to forfeit its legal obligations.
Iberia is refusing to pay
Unfortunately, actually getting Iberia to pay up is proving to be an uphill battle. The Oneworld airline has stonewalled every attempt, and simply refuses to acknowledge that it owes me anything.
In all of my correspondence with Iberia so far, the airline has not actually provided a single concrete reason as to why it’s not liable to pay EU261 compensation. But that doesn’t seem to matter. Iberia’s behaviour has been shameless, and it’s obvious that the airline just wants me to give up and go away.
Iberia’s responses to date
A day after completing this trip, I filled out the EU261 claim form on Iberia’s website.
A few days later, I received the following response from Iberia’s customer service department:
Thank you for contacting us regarding the incident that caused you to miss your connecting flight IB0534 on [date], from LIS to MAD.
We appreciate that you were inconvenienced during your trip. Punctuality is one of our top priorities and we invest our utmost efforts every day into ensuring that our flights arrive on time. This depends on our own actions but also on external factors, whose repercussions we always strive to minimise.
We apologise for the incident, and we trust that you will have a satisfactory experience the next time you fly with us.
Kind regards,
Customer Relations
This response did not even address the issue of EU261 compensation at all, so I replied making it very clear that I was requesting €400 for the delay.
Around 20 minutes later, I received the following reply:
Thank you for your communication about the incident that caused you to miss your connecting flight IB0534 on [date], from LIS to MAD.
However, please note that after reviewing your case, and given the circumstances in which the incident occurred, we must repeat the resolution we offered in our previous communication.
We apologise for any inconvenience you were caused, and we trust that you will have a satisfactory experience the next time you fly with us.
Thank you for choosing Iberia.
Customer Relations
I’m not sure how much time Iberia spent actually “reviewing” my case, given how quickly they sent this reply. I’m also not sure which “resolution” from their previous communication they “must repeat”, given the previous response contained no resolution at all.
I responded again, and got the following reply from Iberia six days later:
Thank you for contacting us regarding your missed connecting flight IB0534 on [date], from Lisboa to Madrid. The plane scheduled for this flight arrived late from its previous destination.
We appreciate that this caused you inconvenience during your trip. Punctuality is one of our top priorities and we invest our utmost efforts every day into ensuring that our flights arrive on time. This depends on our own actions but also on external factors, whose repercussions we always strive to minimise. In this case, circumstances beyond our control affected our operations.
We apologise for the incident, and we trust that you will have a satisfactory experience the next time you fly with us.
Kind regards,
[Name redacted]
Customer Relations
So, after three attempts, Iberia finally offered a reason as to why it would not pay out any compensation – even if it wouldn’t actually mention the words “EU261” or “compensation” in any of its replies. The good old “circumstances beyond our control” excuse.
Was this delay caused by extraordinary circumstances?
Under the EU261 legislation, airlines don’t have to pay compensation for delays caused by “extraordinary circumstances”. For this reason, airlines often try to blame factors outside of their control for disruptions – even where this isn’t really the case.
According to the European Union legal guidelines, events that qualify as “extraordinary circumstances” include:
- Bird strikes
- Collisions with other aircraft or vehicles
- Damage to the aircraft caused by a foreign object
- Petrol on the runway
- Breakdown of the aircraft refuelling system
- Unruly passengers or medical emergencies
- Volcanic eruptions
- Airport congestion due to bad weather conditions
- External strikes
- Shortage of staff providing baggage loading services
My flight from Lisbon to Madrid was delayed for a few different reasons. Specifically:
- The inbound flight from Madrid landed slightly late
- There weren’t enough buses available to take passengers to the plane, which was parked at a remote stand
- After the final door closed, 15 minutes after the scheduled departure time, we had to wait a bit longer to get ATC taxi clearance due to congestion at Lisbon Airport.
I’ve flown out of Lisbon many times and the airport is often busy around 5pm, when this flight departed. The amount of congestion at the airport was about the same as normal – there was no noteworthy weather around, and all runways were operational – so I don’t think there’s anything about this relatively short delay that was an unforeseeable “act of God”. For what it’s worth, IB534 is often slightly delayed.
The main issue, in my opinion, is Iberia’s commercial decision to sell me such a short connection that even a 31-minute delay to the inbound flight was enough to cause me to misconnect.
This isn’t a one-off case
If Iberia clearly explained why it thought extraordinary circumstances were at play here, I would probably accept that and move on. But it’s clear from reading other stories online that this is very much Iberia’s standard modus operandi. It doesn’t really matter what the reason for the delay was – Iberia will just blame external factors and not budge from that position unless forced to by an external regulator or court.
AFF member Scarlett recently tried to claim EU261 compensation for a similar delay which caused them to miss their connecting flight beyond Madrid. This member wrote on our forum:
IB have refused (by simply ignoring anything I have put to them) to acknowledge EU261 compensation due.
Scarlett on the AFF forum
This isn’t new. Back in 2018, several AFF members reported almost identical experiences with trying to claim EU261 compensation from Iberia.
One person wrote on AFF in 2018:
I recently had a flight with Iberia from Granada to Rome via Madrid. Long story short, the first flight was delayed initially by three hours. It was a 7am departure and Iberia explained that the aircraft had a technical issue and a new part was arriving from Madrid at 9am for a 10am departure. This new ETD was further delayed and I forced them to move me onto a Vueling Flight via Barcelona that left around 12pm, by which point the actual Iberia flight still didn’t have an updated ETD. ultimately, we were delayed by over 5 hours, which qualifies for EU261 compensation.
Iberia “detailed” response is as follows:
‘We apologise for the inconvenience caused in relation to the delay of flight IB8639 on 10/05/2018.
Airlines are affected by numerous factors, such as weather conditions and air control permissions, and this means that our aircraft and crews are sometimes held up or find themselves at a different airport from where they should be.
We understand that these circumstances make travelling more tiring, and although the reasons are beyond our control we do everything within our power to limit the inconvenience.
We strive every day to improve the service we offer to customers and we hope you will see this for yourself the next time you fly with us.
Kind regards,
hmmm on the AFF forum
Iberia Customer Services’
Another AFF member also tried in 2018 to claim EU261 compensation after a 12-hour delay, but had no luck getting Iberia to cough up…
I submitted the form to IB with all flight details, times, dates etc which clearly showed we were entitled to the compensation but IB stalled us at every turn – lengthy delays before they replied, then their reply was in Spanish, then they just said sorry you were delayed, have a nice day etc etc. then they asked me for the details of flights etc which I had already sent in my original email.
I persisted for about 9 months and eventually reported the episode to the European body which is supposed to police these things (sorry, I forget its name now). They didn’t even reply to my emails so I gave up.
Wasted so much time that, in retrospect, I wished I hadn’t bothered. My advice would be to not bother with a claim against IB – maybe you’d have better results with other carriers but IB were very frustrating to deal with, deliberately, I think.
vetrade on the AFF forum
I’m not sure how to proceed from here
It’s obvious to me that there’s little point continuing to engage with Iberia on this. The airline is acting like it’s above the law, and I don’t think that’s likely to change unless the Spanish or European regulators take action against the airline.
According to information provided by the European Union, the next escalation step is to file a complaint with the relevant nation’s civil aviation authority.
So, I initially tried to submit an official complaint with the Spanish aviation authority (AESA), but their website didn’t work. In any case, the information on the Spanish government’s website states that jurisdiction lies with the country where the first flight on the ticket departed (if it’s in another EU member country).
Therefore, since my booking originated in Portugal, I filed a complaint with the Portuguese Civil Aviation Authority. This agency has a specific form on its website for EU261-related complaints.
This was more than a month ago. So far, all I’ve received is an email with a reference number acknowledging that they have my complaint. I’m not holding my breath for a fast outcome here – if there even is an outcome at all.
I’m not really sure what else to do. I believe Iberia is liable to pay up, but its strategy seems to be to ignore, deny and obfuscate. I suspect this works for the airline 98% of the time, so I can’t say I’m really surprised that they keep doing it.
The only other thing I can think of is to use a third-party EU261 claim service such as AirHelp, Flightright or SkyRefund. I’m reluctant to do this after hearing a few horror stories. The claims agency would also take a large cut from any compensation payout, but at least I might actually get something for my trouble.
I’m still a big fan of EU261
I’m not sure if this kind of thing is what Qantas Domestic CEO Markus Svensson was referring to when he told a Senate committee last month that he has “nothing good to say” about the EU261 scheme.
“I think a mandatory scheme or compensation scheme does not improve customer protection,” Svensson said.
I strongly disagree with this view. If it doesn’t improve consumer protections, why would Qantas be so determined to block a similar scheme from being introduced in Australia?
Despite the difficulty in getting some airlines to actually pay out, I’m still a big fan of EU261. Why? Because it does actually change the way European airlines run their operations in a material way – to the benefit of passengers.
Faced with the threat of having to pay compensation to customers, European airlines put more effort into selling realistic schedules, minimising overbooking and mitigating delays. You can tell because European airlines often go to great lengths to keep delays under the threshold for paying out compensation.
I think it says a lot about the merits of EU261 that, after hundreds of European flights, this is the first time I’ve ever actually tried to claim compensation.
