AirHelp, one of the largest air passenger support portals, sued the low-cost Irish airline Ryanair in the Berlin District Court. The subject of the action is a violation of the law in the General Conditions, which limits the rights of air passengers.
Under Ryanair’s terms and conditions, passengers are subject to Irish law and courts only on each flight. As a result, passengers would be required to take legal action in an Irish court if Ryanair denied them an eligible compensatory payment, even if the flight had taken place in Germany.
In addition, it is forbidden to execute claims for the delays and failures of expert third parties such as passenger rights portals. In the clauses, AirHelp considers a deliberate deception of consumers and a deliberate violation of passenger rights throughout the EU.
According to AirHelp, Ryanair applies the articles in their terms and conditions to deliberately prevent consumers from claiming compensation for flight problems. However, the clauses have no legal basis and are therefore illegal. According to the EU Passenger Rights Ordinance 261/2004, the use and assignment of claims must not be limited by restrictive provisions of the carrier’s contract of carriage. If this happens nevertheless, the rights of passengers remain unchanged. According to this, the German courts would also be responsible for theft problems in Germany.
In previous proceedings in January and July 2018, AirHelp was able to obtain from the court that these clauses were considered ineffective in Germany. Ryanair lost and had to pay legal compensation to the injured passengers. AirHelp is now seeking an injunction for Ryanair to remove clauses from its terms and conditions.
Christian Nielsen, legal expert at AirHelp, comments:
According to Ryanair, the terms of their terms and conditions only cover the protection of their customers, but the opposite is true: the passenger must be compelled by the articles to fight alone against the problems and under Irish law. Ryanair is a source of visual pollution in this otherwise uneven struggle, which is by no means sustainable. AirHelp therefore strives to ensure that such illegal practices do not become socially acceptable and are brought to justice by German courts against Ryanair. “
