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I've had a positive experience with the Czech Aviation Authority where Delta paid up almost immediately after they've ruled in my favor. This makes me wonder - does it ever make sense to use one of the "EC261 compensation" agencies rather than filing a complaint with the civil aviation authority on your own? Do they ever actually file lawsuits against the airline if other negotiation tactics fail?

JonathanReez
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    If you look at the case law if favour of passengers, quite a few are indeed subsequent to a lawsuit filed by our of those companies on behalf of a passenger. I expect that in many cases airlines prefer to settle before it goes to trial, so there must be even more cases. And I believe not all nations al authorities have the same “teeth”. – jcaron Dec 10 '23 at 23:52
  • @jcaron do we have a way of figuring out which company filed which lawsuit? Usually you can only see the name of the passenger, not who’s paying for the legal action. – JonathanReez Dec 10 '23 at 23:57
  • I remember having seen cases where it was written that the lawsuit was filed by company X on behalf of passenger Y. The name of X may not match the website name but that should be easy to match. No time to check now though. – jcaron Dec 11 '23 at 08:45
  • @jcaron I've checked a few random cases from the EU LEX portal and none had any mention of filed on behalf of X. I think I might email a dozen of these companies and ask them for EU court case numbers that they've filed. – JonathanReez Dec 11 '23 at 18:35

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Flightright, a German business offering this kind of services is somewhat infamous among court insiders for its role in bringing up cases. A search on InfoCuria (a database from the EUCJ) for the name “Flightright” yields 21 cases. I don't know if they are the only ones or the biggest but that's certainly evidence that they will go all the way to filing court cases.

Keep in mind that the EUCJ search would only reveal cases where the national court asked the EUCJ for a preliminary ruling, which they don't need to do if they think the relevant area of EU law is clear. There are also big differences between countries in that respect so it's entirely possible other agents also pursue cases aggressively even if they don't show up in that database.

jcaron
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Relaxed
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    Incidentally, in a few cases like C-661/19, the national courts pulled their request before the EUCJ could issue its ruling, maybe because filing was enough to obtain compensation and the airline prefers to avoid a precedent? – Relaxed Dec 21 '23 at 17:47
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This article from AFP (in French) tells us that courts close to the offices of airlines are actually submerged by lawsuits filed by such companies on behalf of passengers.

They say that in most cases it ends up without a judgement (because either the customer accepts there were extraordinary circumstances, or the airline finally paid), but that it still takes up a lot of their time.

A few numbers they give:

aucune des 104 affaires à l'ordre du jour (...)

None of the 104 cases on the docket today (...)

Le tribunal de proximité d'Aulnay-sous-Bois (région parisienne), non loin de l'aéroport Roissy-Charles-de-Gaulle, comptait, fin 2023, près de 13.000 requêtes en stock pour ce litige.

The small claims court of Aulnay-sous-Bois (Paris region), close to the Roissy-Charles-de-Gaulle airport, had, by end of 2023, nearly 13 000 pending cases for this reason.

"J'avais une dizaine de dossiers la première année, j'en ai maintenant 4.000 à 5.000" [says Me Emilie Minard-Driss, who acts in the defence of several airlines including Vueling and SARA]

"I had about ten cases the first year, now I have 4 000 to 5 000"

(translations and emphasis mine).

The article says that most of the lawsuits are filed by compensation companies, sometimes even without informing the customer. They probably have a template they fill in and send to the court in batches. I suppose it's quite effective in the cases when it's nearly obvious the airline should pay (and the court will decide in favour of the customer), but also in edge cases, when the airlines want to avoid it going to court and setting a precedent for future cases.

The article describes how they are exploring ways to streamline these processes to avoid going to court as much as possible.

So Yes, those companies do file lawsuits. In very large numbers. Is it more effective than if you did it yourself? No idea.

jcaron
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