Compensation Clinic: Lufthansa Domestic Flight, Operated By Eurowings Cancelled – EU261/2004 Case

This week’s Compensation Clinic is a simple EU Compensation case that was filed with Lufthansa who then forwarded it to Eurowings as the operating carrier.

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Usually EU Compensation cases per EU261/2004 are relatively straightforward (as in this case) but sometimes airlines refute the actual reason for the delay or cancellation.

In this particular situation, it was a Lufthansa flight from Frankfurt to Bremen where a friend of mine was a Business Class passenger for a feeder flight that was marketed with a 3-digit Lufthansa flight number (but would have been operated by Eurowings as it turned out).

The flight cancelled 90 minutes before departure and a friend of mine who came in on another flight waiting for this BRE connection misconnected in Frankfurt.

That day there were a lot of cancellations at Frankfurt Airport but he managed to get a hold of a Lufthansa employee who provided him with a voucher for the Aloft Hotel Frankfurt Airport. He didn’t receive a taxi voucher though which was an oversight on his part.

Since my friend isn’t well versed in these things I quickly filed the compensation request per EU regulation on Lufthansa’s website. It didn’t take long for a reply, within 48 hours Lufthansa confirmed they would pay as a gesture of goodwill.

Guten Tag Dr. Xxxxxx,

uns ist bewusst, dass Sie schon lange auf eine Antwort von uns warten. Dies bedauern wir sehr.

Wir haben Ihr Schreiben registriert und möchten Ihnen aus kundendienstlichen Gründen und ohne Präjudiz für die Sach- und Rechtslage unbürokratisch die Summe zahlen und damit zu einem positiven Reiseabschluss beitragen.

Bitte senden Sie uns Ihre Bankdaten, Ihre Adresse sowie eine Kopie eines Ausweisdokuments zu. Denn bedauerlicherweise konnten wir Ihre Identität anhand der von Ihnen bislang übermittelten Daten nicht klären.

Lufthansa nimmt die Sicherheit und den Schutz Ihrer persönlichen Daten sehr ernst. Die von Ihnen übermittelten Dokumente dienen ausschließlich der zweifelsfreien Überprüfung Ihrer Identität in Bezug auf Ihr Anliegen und somit Ihrem persönlichen Schutz. Wir stellen damit sicher, dass nur Sie die Zahlung erhalten und nicht unberechtigte Dritte. Wir vergleichen die Kopie Ihres Lichtbildausweises mit den flugrelevanten Buchungsdaten. Nach dieser Prüfung werden Ihre persönlichen Daten ausschließlich zur Qualitätssicherung genutzt und sechs Monate nach Abschluss der Bearbeitung Ihres Anliegens vernichtet.

Not sure what the goodwill part is in this case but they agreed to the 250 EUR compensation requested.

Lufthansa replied that they would process the payment expediently and requested a copy of the traveler’s ID as well as the banking information. I submitted both promptly.

The airline paid within 10 business days directly to my friend’s German bank account.

A week later another payment confirmation arrived from Eurowings but they refered to the original case and payment rendered.

Conclusion

Lufthansa reacted quickly and agreed to pay the 250 EUR EU Compensation for the forced overnight due to the cancellation of the Lufthansa flight from Frankfurt to Bremen.

I often had Lufthansa decline the request and it had to go through the SOP Ombudsman which can take quite a long time so this time around I was quite happy it was resolved this easy.