Our Clients were booked to fly with Qatar Airways on 22 October 2019 from London Gatwick to Kolkata via Doha.
At London Gatwick our Clients tried to check in for both flights. However Qatar would not issue boarding passes for the second leg from Doha to Kolkata as they had oversold the flight and only had 1 seat remaining. Our Clients were told to board the first flight and that Qatar would sort out the problem once they arrived in Doha.
The first flight was delayed by 29 minutes however our Clients still tried to make their way to the connecting flight to see if seats had become available. Despite the 29 minute delay our Clients still arrived on time but once they arrived at the gate they still could not board the flight and eventually got rebooked with a delay of nearly 24 hours.
Our Clients instructed Hayward Baker to bring a claim for denied boarding against Qatar. Under EU Regulation 261/2004 our Clients were entitled to compensation of 600 euros each.
Qatar refused to make payment and so we had to take Court action against the airline in the small claims court.
Qatar defended the claim arguing that our Clients were not denied boarding but in fact missed the flight due to the initial delay and that this was caused by air traffic control restricting the aircraft and so did not have to pay compensation.
At trial the Judge found in our Clients favour that they had been denied boarding and believed our Clients version of events as the airline had failed to deal with any of our Clients evidence at the hearing. They were awarded £497 each.