The Dutch NEB for air passenger rights, the Human Environment and Transport Inspectorate (ILT), ruled on 07-01-2016 that Vueling Airlines S.A. consistently denies passengers compensation in case of delays, cancellations or denied boarding.
This ruling will be enforced by a penalty payment. This means that Vueling risks a fine in the range of € 60.000,- and €96.000,- every time that they deny passengers compensation without any legal ground.
The total amount due can reach a maximum of € 1 million. With this penalty payment, the ILT wants to force Vueling to pay passengers the compensation they are entitled to.
The ILT confirmed that Vueling sends passengers a standard rejection to their claims, without proving that extraordinary circumstances occurred. It is not until passengers complain about that rejection to the ILT, that Vueling decides to compensate the passengers. By rejecting legitimate claims, Vueling violates the law. Passengers that do not contradict this rejection by the airline, are left without compensation unjustly. Vueling then saves money, since they pay less compensation. This will lead to unfair competition with other airlines, who do compensate their passengers in a fair manner.
The ILT has contacted Vueling several times about this issue and strengthened their monitoring on the airline. Since Vueling did not change their process, the penalty payment was issued.
Passengers have the right to submit their rejected claim to the airline again, as long as the flight did not occur more than two years ago.
