Ryanair ordered to cough up for volcano chaos
Ryanair
(LUXEMBOURG) - The European Court of Justice on Thursday ordered the Irish airline Ryanair to compensate passengers whose travel plans were thrown into chaos by the 2010 eruption of an Icelandic volcano.
The court was ruling on a case brought by an Irish citizen that has implications for travellers on all carriers in European Union airspace should unpredictable events wreak havoc with schedules in the future.
Its decision could also have an impact on prices in the budget market.
The judges said that when flights are cancelled in "extraordinary" circumstances such as the eruption, which sent a giant ash cloud floating across Western Europe and beyond, even low-cost airlines had an "obligation" to lodge and feed passengers before they could finish their journey.
Denise McDonagh brought the case to a Dublin court after her flight from Faro, Portugal to Dublin was cancelled. She had a five-day wait before flights between Ireland and the rest of the continent were re-established and a seven-day delay before she got home.
The Icelandic volcano erupted in April 2010, spewing a massive cloud of ash that caused the planet's biggest airspace shutdown since World War II, with more than 100,000 flights cancelled and eight million passengers stranded.
In an experience familiar to many passengers, the company refused to cover any of McDonagh's expenses during the delay, but the judges ordered Ryanair to pay her almost 1,330 euros ($1,800) to cover costs incurred during the week in limbo.
Irish judges had asked the EU's top court to rule on whether the volcanic eruption constituted "extraordinary" circumstances, and the court said there was no category of "particularly extraordinary" that would allow carriers to be exonerated from their obligations.
Further, the judges said that there should be no time limit on claims for such compensation, exposing Ryanair especially to a substantial bill -- the other big airlines are understood to have mostly dealt with their own backlogs of compensation claims from travellers.