SAS misleading delayed passengers and failing to follow EU law

According to the EU, passengers have the right to compensation if their flight is delayed, but SAS is failing to provide customers with adequate information

An EU law passed in 2004 states that if a flight is cancelled, passengers have the right to compensation of 2,000-4,500 kroner. In 2009, that law was extended to include passengers of flights which are delayed more than three hours. This law was verified by the EU in the autumn of 2012.

SAS Airlines, however, have not included this information in their informational material about the flight passengers’ rights. Furthermore, some people have reported that they have not received compensation owed to them when they notified SAS about their rights as a passenger.

Christian Vindinge Rasmussen is a frequent flyer who says he was misled by SAS when his flight from Brussels back to Denmark was delayed for eleven hours.

“I told the SAS staff that I believe I am entitled to financial compensation and then they told me that I can read about my rights in the leaflet they had given me,” Rasmussen told DR News, which confirmed that the SAS leaflet did not hold any information about the EU law on compensation rights.

When the DR's news programme Kontant confronted SAS with its misleading leaflet, the company's communications director, Trine Kromann-Mikkelsen, said that SAS finds the law too controversial and therefore does not acknowledge it. 

“There have been other things to deal with here in SAS last autumn and this one has not been one of the priorities,” Kromann-Mikkelsen told Kontant, referring to the company's flirt with bankruptcy.

SAS’s website, however, clearly states that “SAS follows EU’s rules for compensation in case of major delays and cancelled flights. The compensation starts if the flight is delayed more than two hours and consists of expenses for food and beverages.”

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