Blogs

The plaintiff took part in Lufthansa's frequent flyer programme "Miles & More" and had collected about 900.000 bonus miles until Lufthansa changed the terms regarding redemption of bonus miles. According to the new terms, the number of bonus miles required to receive a business class or first class upgrade had gone up 15 to 20 percent. The plaintiff regarded these changes unfair and void and therefore filed a law suit at the regional court in Colonia (LG Köln).

In a case reported earlier, the Austrian Civil Supreme Court has now deleivered the final judgment. The plaintiffs had missed their Antarctica cruise following a delayed departure of their feeder flight to Frankfurt caused by snow covered runways at the Vienna airport. They sued the carrier and the airport for damages.

In December 2011, the Government of Canada announced that the Canadian Transportation Agency would develop regulations requiring all-inclusive air price advertising. These regulations are now published on Part II of the Canada Gazette.

The regulations support two key objectives:

The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) said it levied USD 3.6 million in penalties for 2012 violations of the department’s consumer-protection rules for air passengers. The total is up from USD 3.3 million in 2011. During 2012, the Department issued 49 consent orders for consumer rule violations, the most recent two against Copa Airlines and Virgin America for not strictly adhering to the DOT’s rules for lengthy tarmac delays.

Three airlines have challenged the Transportation Department’s new price-advertising rule nefore the U.S. Supreme Court, claiming that the DOT is violating the First Amendment by prohibiting airlines from advertising base prices net of taxes and fees. The airlines also claim that the DOT has been violating the Airline Deregulation Act by imposing unique requirements such as “the size of typeface and the length of mandatory refunds — in an industry that Congress expressly chose to deregulate.”

The plainitff had booked a cruise to the Caribbean and a flight ticket with defendant who acted as agent on behalf of the organiser and the airline. The flight was not part of the cruise package but booked separately. The cruise was scheduled to depart from Ft Lauderdale on 19 April, 2010. However, the closure of the European airspace due to the 'ash cloud crisis' prevented the planitff to fly to Florida. He therefore cancelled the cruise. The organiser charged a cancellation fee of 90 % which the agent paid.

California Attorney General Kamala Harris has filed a complaint against Delta, alleging that Delta has failed to conspicuously post a privacy policy on its mobile application, in violation of California’s Online Privacy Protection Act (“CalOPPA”).

The IFTTA Law Review 3-2012 is now available within the members' area of the website. It contains an article by Stephan Keiler on the European Bus Passengers' Rights Regulation and several court cases.

The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) assessed Vision Airlines a USD 50,000 penalty for violating rules that protect passengers when their public charter flights are suddenly canceled and ordered the carrier to cease and desist from further violations.

On Dec. 4, 2012, the European Commission has adopted the 20th update of the European list of air carriers which are subject to an operating ban or operational restrictions within the European Union, better known as "the EU air safety list". Because of important safety concerns, air carriers certified in Eritrea have been added to the list.