The court in 's-Hertogenbosch has today ruled that Ryanair must nevertheless pay compensation claims. The airline has to pay those claims to Claimingo, which buys the claims from passengers and then collects them. The East Brabant court previously ruled that Ryanair did not have to pay the claims. In September 2017, a Ryanair flight arrived in Eindhoven with a delay of more than 3 hours. The delay was caused by a broken on-board radio. As a result of this delay, 4 passengers transferred their compensation claims totaling 1.600 euros to Claimingo, a company that collects claims from Ryanair.
Claimingo has already paid the agreed fee to the passengers, but never received the money from Ryanair. Ryanair believes that it does not have to pay Claimingo's claims for 2 reasons. Ryanair's terms and conditions state that claims cannot be transferred to third parties, in this case Claimingo, the company that collected the claims on behalf of the passengers. This is also known as a ban on assignments. In addition, Ryanair believes that a broken on-board radio is a so-called 'extraordinary circumstance' and therefore does not constitute a reason for compensation.
The Subdistrict Court dismissed Claimingo's claim. The court ruled that the passengers could also have submitted their claim to Ryanair themselves. But because the transfer of their claim to Claimingo was in violation of the assignment ban, Ryanair did not have to pay the claims to the company in any case.
The court now rules differently. The court finds that the prohibition on assignments is null and void in this case. The prohibition is an inadmissible restriction on the right to compensation. It does not matter that the company that has submitted the claims is not itself a consumer. In addition, the failure of one of the on-board radios is not a special circumstance according to European law. The aircraft also did not have to have all on-board radios available on board. Ryanair has not disputed this either on appeal.
The ruling of the court means that Ryanair still has to pay the submitted claims to the company with a total amount of 1.600 euros. In addition, the airline also pays for the litigation costs and collection costs.
Source: www.rechtspraak.nl
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