Eu261 – is it 14 actual days or 14 days from the specific time of departure?

[Simonm]

My flight from BHD-AMS was due to depart at 17:10 on 22 July. I received notification on the morning of 8th July that the flight had been cancelled. I filed a claim for EU261 compensation as I felt I’d received notice of the cancellation within 14 days (counting the 8th to the 9th as 1 day etc.).

After a long battle with customer services, I filed a Small Claims Online case, and at the very last minute before I could apply for a default judgement, KLM have responded by saying I am not due any compensation as they cancelled the flight with more than 14 days’ notice (taking a day as the morning on the 8th of July to 11.59 to the morning of the 9th of July etc., and my flight was in the evening.)

Has anyone been in this situation before? Just wondering if I should throw in the towel however I still feel my flight was cancelled two weeks beforehand! Thanks in advance for any advice.

[NorthernLass]

My feeling is that it’s whole days which count here, otherwise it would be just too complex to take into account all the permutations of flight times which might be impacted. @LadyLondon may well know the definitive answer to this. Don’t throw in the towel until you know for sure though, airlines have not covered themselves with glory over cancellation rights in the past 2 years and definitely shouldn’t be allowed to get away with wriggling out of any obligations!

[Simonm]

Thanks NorthernLass! Have made it this far so I am happy to keep on going, but if they’re right, I feel it would be the right thing to withdraw the claim. That would be frustrating though as I then had to spend a fortune on an extra hotel booking!

[JDB]

@Simonm the time specified in Article 5 1(c)(ii) is not 14 days but two weeks :-

“…unless…they are informed of the cancellation between two weeks and seven days before the scheduled time of departure…”

It does specify the time of departure rather than day of departure.

[Lady London]

@JDB might know. I don’t. Regardless of the law it’s sleazy.

My gut feeling is it has to be by midnight the day preceding 14 daya ahead of the flight. So by a Sunday 23.59 for a flight anytime on thw Monday 2 weeks later.

But I am motivated by fairness, and then I try to find the law to suit. And in thia case you really need to know so my Eliza Dolittle approach won’t work, and we’ll have to wait for JDB, SamG or it would be nice to still have ChrisC who probably would know.

[Simonm]

Thanks @JDB and @LadyLondon, sounds like I’m out of luck!

[Richie]

pls delete.