Passengers and package travelers try more and more enforce their right in court in case of failures and other deficiencies. The local courts in Dusseldorf and Cologne recorded a significant increase in the number of complaints in the past year. The District Court of Dusseldorf 2018 more than 12,000 lawsuits from this area of law received, as a court spokeswoman said on Monday. The year before, there were only 5,000 new lawsuits related to flight and travel rights.
The WDR had already reported in the past week on the increase in lawsuits in Dusseldorf. About 4000 lawsuits were directed according to the court alone against the airline Eurowings.
A company spokeswoman pointed out that the airline is the clear market leader in Düsseldorf and Cologne. After the problems in summer 2018, all airlines would have to work through an increased complaint volume. Meanwhile, at Eurowings the receipt of complaints but continuously. Eurowings has been one of the most punctual airlines in Europe since the beginning of the winter timetable.
A spokeswoman for the Cologne district court reported a significant increase in the lawsuits, but did not mention any numbers. The spokespersons did not give any reasons for the increase.
However, travelers had enough to worry about last year. In the summer of 2018, there had been considerable problems in Europe with cancellations and delays. The airlines were responsible for bottlenecks in air traffic control, air traffic controller strikes, long waiting times at the passenger controls and an accumulation of storms. Added to this was the consequences of the bankruptcy of what was once the second-largest airline Air Berlin last year.
According to Lufthansa's own data, on average more than 60 flights per day fell in 2018 at Lufthansa. Across the Group, around 18,000 flights have been canceled
Worry about renewed flight chaos
So that such a scenario does not repeat itself, the aviation industry has meanwhile done much to be able to handle the flight operations more stable, said a few days ago Klaus-Dieter Scheurle, President of the Federal Association of the German Air Transport Industry (BDL). Nevertheless, he expects again many cancellations and delays of flights in the coming holidays. "We have to expect that the summer of 2019 will be difficult," said Scheurle.
At the end of the year, an increase in complaints was also reported by the Conciliation Body for Public Transport (SÖP). Never before have so many travelers complained about airlines and Deutsche Bahn as in 2018 - mainly because of the big problems in air traffic. "In 2018, we expect about 32,000 arbitration applications, twice as many as in the previous year," said SÖP CEO Heinz Klewe in December.
Klewe noted that the "problems that frequently occurred in flights and train journeys to ensure scheduled traffic" were among the main reasons for the jump in the number of cases. The travelers increasingly knew about their rights and demanded them.
"The lawsuits for canceled or delayed flights have now become a veritable industry," says the WDR article on the current lawsuit. For a fee, service providers assume the collection of the compensation. For canceled flights travelers get back up to 600 euros. Read here what passengers need to know about passenger rights portals.