Lost bag claims limited to €1,100 by EU ruling

AIRLINE COMPENSATION:PASSENGERS CAN claim no more than about €1,100 from airlines that lose their baggage, regardless of the value of the contents, the European Court of Justice has confirmed.

In a case brought by a traveller who had claimed three times as much, the court this week ruled that air carriers’ liability for lost baggage is limited to the amounts set in the Montreal Convention, which was approved by the EU in 2001. This sets the maximum compensation at 1,000 special drawing rights for each passenger, equivalent to about €1,134 at current exchange rates.

Passengers are entitled to claim more only if they have made a declaration before flying and paid an additional sum, the court said.

According to Sita, a Geneva-based organisation that provides a baggage-tracking system for the air-transport industry, just over 1 per cent of checked luggage – about 25 million bags – failed to reach its destination in time last year. European airlines alone lose or damage about five million bags a year.

In the current case, a Spanish court had asked the European Court of Justice, in Luxembourg, for a preliminary ruling on a case in which a passenger had claimed €3,200 from Clickair, a subsidiary of Iberia, for losing his luggage.

The ruling will come as scant comfort for an airline sector facing losses of up to €2.5 billion from the volcanic-ash crisis. Under the convention, an airline is liable for the destruction or loss of, or damage to, checked baggage even if it is not at fault, unless the baggage was defective.

Passengers seeking airline compensation arising from the ash cloud can use a European Commission complaint package.It includes a standard complaint letter, a list of addresses where the letters can be sent and advice on the use of out-of-court dispute-resolution procedures, and the EU small-claims procedure to claim refunds.

It is available from the European Consumer Centre’s office in Dublin or online at eccdublin.ie.