A court in the UK has ruled against Ryanair in a landmark case on compensation for passengers for flight delays.
Six passengers took a court case in Manchester, challenging the airline's two year time limit for making claims over delays. EU laws give a six year time limit but Ryanair had attempted to argue that passengers agreed to a two year limit when they agreed to the terms and conditions of their flight.
A Manchester County Court has today ruled that the two year limit is unlawful and the airline must abide by the six year limit.
Ryanair has instructed its lawyers to appeal the ruling. A statement from the airline said: "Since we believe a 6 year time limit for submitting such claims is both unnecessary and unreasonable, we have instructed our lawyers to immediately appeal this ruling."
Solicitors speaking on behalf of the winning claimants said they estimate a total of 2.26 million passengers could now be eligible to claim compensation. The airline has argued that actual compensation paid out would be roughly €5m.
Bott & Co Solicitors, who represented the claimants said after the ruling: "We're delighted that the court has dismissed yet another argument put forward by the airlines to restrict passenger rights.
"If Ryanair had won, all airlines might have been able to put a two year time bar on all existing and future claims."
The airline released a statement this evening in which it: "rubbished the absurd claims about its potential liability under the Manchester Court judgement. Firstly, since less than 1% of Ryanair flights are delayed over 3 hours and since more than 90% of passengers make a valid claim within Ryanair’s contractual 2 year period, there is a tiny potential group of passengers who may wish to submit a claim between 2 and 6 years after the date of their flight delay."
The airline has put the "maximum exposure" of the ruling at 19,500 passengers who could potentially claim compensation.
The airline's total compensation estimate of €5m is calculated based on each claim being at the lowest level of compensation - €250 (for flights up to 1,500km). However, Flight Delay Regulation EC 261/2004 allows for compensation to range up to €600, depending on delay duration and length of the flight.
While Ryanair is unlikely to have many claims in the upper tier, there would possibly be a large number in the middle range of €400 per claim, which covers flights of a distance of 1,500-3,000km that are delayed over 3 hours.
In a statement to Newstalk Ryanair said they would ensure that law firms who took "bogus" compensation cases against the airline would "incur huge costs and (be) ultimately unsuccessful."
