Avoid litigation like the plague

And watch out for the prawn sandwiches if you don’t want to end up in the Supreme Court

“Avoid litigation like the plague” is good advice for lawyers to give — though notoriously difficult for clients to accept.

Take the case of Kenneth and Linda Lipton. The couple — from Hampshire, I believe — were delayed by around two-and-a-half hours after their flight back from Milan was cancelled at short notice. They sued the airline for compensation. We don’t know what legal advice they were given but it would be surprising if they expected to find their claim heading to the UK Supreme Court. I shudder to think what it could cost them if they lose.

The story so far

The case goes back to January 2018. Ken and Linda (as I hope they won’t mind me calling them) were booked on a two-hour flight from Milan to London operated by BA CityFlyer, a wholly owned subsidiary of British Airways.

A BA CityFlyer aircraft at London City Airport

The flight was due to take off at 5.05pm. An hour earlier, the captain phoned in sick. The airline has refused to disclose the nature of the illness — one of the judges imagined it had resulted from a dodgy prawn sandwich although I would prefer to think it was linguine alle vongole followed by pizza frutti di mare — but in any case the airline’s medical advisers confirmed that the unfortunate and unidentified captain was not fit to fly.

Not surprisingly, BA CityFlyer did not have a spare pilot sitting around in Milan airport and the flight was cancelled. Ken and Linda were re-booked onto another airline and arrived at London City airport two hours and 36 minutes later than their scheduled arrival time.

It’s worth remembering that this happened two years before the pandemic. These days, most of us would regard it as a win to get home — with our luggage — on the right day.

But Ken and Linda had undoubtedly been inconvenienced and they claimed compensation for the delay. When this was refused, they took the fateful decision to sue BA CityFlyer.

Compensation for flight delays

A well-known EU regulation called (EC) 261/2004 gave passengers flying within Europe a right to compensation if their flights were cancelled or significantly delayed. Under article 7, you were entitled to €250 for a flight of this length. But there was a crucial exception.