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15-08-09 Irish Times

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Thursday 8 November 2007

Most Complaints from Passengers Martinair

The airline company Martinair has received a considerable amount of claims from passengers, according to the CEO of EUclaim. EUclaim acts as a mediator for passengers who have been confronted with a cancellation, rerouting, denied boarding or delay of their flight.

"Martinair is leading with the number of passengers filing claims", says Hendrik Noorderhaven, CEO of EUclaim. "Because of the busy schedule the airline, the amount of claims is higher than can be expected statistically. Their fleet is relatively small which should have resulted in fewer claims. Martinair has, however, had to deal with a large amount of cancelled flights that were rerouted to the next day."

The list of claims is lead by KLM. "This was evident considering the dominant position of KLM at Schiphol", says Noorderhaven.

The graphs indicate that passengers are far more willing to file a claim with airlines for long haule flight from the Netherlands. Much more so than with short flights. This is because the impact on passengers is far larger. This summer EUclaim experienced its first 'season'. While the spring season was characterized by anonymity and careful testing by passengers and the market, by the end of the summer the business has been working full force. The announcement that D-Reizen and EUclaim would begin working together created a breakthrough for the business and wave of publicity. "This has really put us in the public eye", states the CEO of EUclaim. Multiple travel agencies has since then joined and the growth of claims has since then been exponential. "We have since then proven our legitimacy".

The introduction of the Claim Calculator in the spring of this year has contributed to the strong growth. Because of the relative obscurity of the conditions of the regulation 261/2004 regarding cancellations, rerouting, denied boarding or delays, the expectation of many passengers was far too high. "We therefore call it upon the industry and the airlines to follow the law in duly inform their passengers of their rights prior to the flight. They are legally obliged to do so but unfortunately we have seen that airlines do not always take their responsibility in this", states Noorderhaven.

EUclaim will soon be opening offices in Great Britain and Germany. As a means to assist passengers who have had a flight cancelled or altered from close proximity. "We are after all an international organization. With regards to the types of claims, we expect the same behavior in Great Britain and Germany as we have had in the Netherlands", Noorderhaven predicts. "Specifically far more claims for long (vacation) flights and relatively little claims for airports that are only active in Europe."