Compensation - EU decision

Airlines must pay compensation to passengers who arrive at their destination three or more hours late, even when due to missed connections, the European Union's highest court has said, Reuters reports.

The ruling supplements a verdict by the European Union Court of Justice (ECJ) in October that passengers should be recompensed for delays to individual flights.

Judges in the court were ruling on a case of a woman who booked to fly from Bremen in Germany to Asuncion in Paraguay.

Her initial flight with Air France to Paris took off with a delay of 2½ hours.  She missed her AF connection to Sao Paulo and arrived late.

Air France was obliged to pay her €600 in compensation, but appealed to a German court.  It asked the ECJ if payment should be made in the case of a flight delay of less than three hours, but final arrival late by three hours or more.

Air passenger compensation rulings are getting expensive.  The EU has previously told airlines to compensate people bumped off flights because of strikes, saying that was not a good enough excuse not to reimburse. http://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/travel

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