A Spanish court ordered TAP to include a baby in compensation for a flight delay, despite the fact that the child did not pay for a ticket or occupy a seat on the plane, because he was traveling on the lap of an adult.
The ruling of a court in Bilbao, in the Basque Country (northeast Spain), was made public this Thursday by the ERREKLAMATU law firm, which specializes in claims related to flights, banks and accidents.
“In case of cancellation or delay, babies are also subject to compensation”, in “certain cases”, such as the case of the family of four from the Basque Country who traveled from Lisbon to Bilbao, on June 4, 2022, in a flight of the Portuguese airline TAP that was delayed five hours, explained ERREKLAMATU, in a statement in which he announced the court ruling, from a court of first instance.
Due to the delay, the family (two adults and two children, one of them a baby under the age of two) asked TAP for compensation of 1,026.56 euros, corresponding to 250 euros per person and other expenses caused by not leaving flight time. .
Always according to ERREKLAMATU, TAP partially accepted the family’s request and proposed compensation of 769.30 euros, which excluded the child under two years of age, “claiming that the baby did not pay for a ticket or occupy a seat on the flight.”
The airline also refused to pay the excess that the family had to pay for parking in Bilbao, for having exceeded the reservation time they had previously made, as it was not “a concept linked to passenger assistance”.
The ruling of the Court of First Instance No. 12 of Bilbao, which the law firm made public this Thursday, however, condemned TAP to pay all the compensation requested by the family.
In the case of the baby, according to the lawyers, the judge argued that “in the reservation issued when the tickets were purchased, the name of the minor identified as a passenger appears” and, in addition, “a boarding pass was issued.” with her name and payment of fees, thus setting the price of the ticket.
According to the lawyers, in addition to airport taxes, the family had also paid a commission of close to six euros to book the trip.
The court invoked European Regulation No. 261/2004, on the rights of passengers affected by delayed, canceled or overbooked flights (more reservations than available seats).
The sentence of the Spanish court, quoted in the communiqué of the lawyers of ERREKLAMATU, defends that the European regulation establishes compensation for the passenger “understood as the one who is transported by the company, and that for the simple fact of having been a passenger making a reservation and buy a ticket, even if that ticket does not give you the right to use a different seat than your parents’.
“Evident proof is that the baby pays airport taxes and has his boarding pass, which implies that the ticket is not free,” the judge wrote in the sentence cited by the lawyers.
Source: TSF
