The Agency for Passenger and Air Passenger Rights (apf) explains what needs to be considered.

The European Air Passenger Rights Regulation protects passengers in the event of flight irregularities (such as delays or cancellations), and they may also be entitled to a so-called compensation payment. "If an airline refuses to pay, the Agency for Passenger and Passenger Rights (apf) can examine the case free of charge and commission-free - and then, if necessary, conduct an arbitration procedure between the passenger and the airline," informs Maria-Theresia Röhsler, head of apf. However, the whole thing often becomes difficult if the booking was made via an online travel portal (with which apf cannot conduct arbitration proceedings).

Information about cancellation

If a flight is canceled early enough (at least two weeks before the scheduled departure time) and the airline provides verifiable information about this, according to the Air Passenger Rights Ordinance there is no right to compensation, but the passenger has the choice between a refund of the ticket costs and alternative transport to the final destination.

Unfortunately, it often happens that when booking via online portals, these do not (completely) disclose the contact details of the airline passengers or use e-mail addresses that they have created themselves for the booking. In such cases, the airline often sends the information about the cancellation to the online travel portal, but this does not forward the information to the travelers. 

The European Court of Justice (ECJ) has the question of whether the operating airline also has to make the compensation payment if a booking platform does not give the airline with which it has no contractual relationship the contact details of the passenger that it has been given, but one specifically for the booking automatically generated own e-mail address made a decision in December 2021: The obligation to inform is owed solely by the operating airline. "This means that a passenger who booked a flight via an online travel portal and was not informed about the cancellation of this flight is entitled to the compensation payment," explains Röhsler.

Multi-stage flight

Certain claims arising from the EU Air Passenger Rights Regulation only exist if a uniform contract of carriage was concluded for a multi-part flight (flight with a connecting flight or connecting flights). For this, a consistent reservation number or a consistent booking code (PNR number; passenger name record; passenger data record) must be available. This is guaranteed when booking directly with an airline or through a travel agency, but not always when booking through an online travel portal. These often offer flight combinations that are coordinated with each other in terms of flight times, but are not uniform or have been booked with different airlines.

Due to the tickets booked independently of each other, it is not clear to the airline whether a flight was purchased as a connecting flight. Although these combinations may be cheaper, they are separately reserved flights and do not constitute a single contract of carriage. As a result, if problems arise, passengers often have no right to assistance or free onward transport by the airline. Furthermore, in these cases the right to a compensation payment can be lost entirely or the amount of the payment can be reduced, since only the leg of the journey affected by the irregularity is used to calculate the compensation payment.

agency fees

When booking via online travel portals, only the total price is often shown, which means that the costs of the airfare and agency fees are not broken down for the passengers. In the event of a cancellation in accordance with the Air Passenger Rights Ordinance, the operating airline only has to reimburse the costs of the tickets and not the brokerage fee of the online travel portal - which often leads to a nasty surprise for passengers when the actual payment is made. 

How best to proceed

In the first step, passengers must address their claim in writing to the airline concerned. apf has provided sample letters for this purpose, which can be found at www.passenger.at are available. If the company does not respond adequately or not at all within six weeks of submission, it can contact apf online via www.passenger.at a request for arbitration to be submitted. Regardless of the outcome of the procedure, apf's service is always free of charge and commission-free for passengers.