Dear Passenger,
Thank you for writing to us. We apologise for any inconvenience and for the unusually long delay in processing your complaint.
We are very sorry that we were not able to operate your flight as planned.
We work very hard to provide our passengers with a reliable, high-quality product. This includes attending to our passengers' concerns to the best of our ability and ensuring that they feel welcome and well looked-after from the moment they arrive at the airport. Unfortunately, we did not achieve this goal in the case of your flight.
We understand your frustration, but would like to assure you that Germanwings does everything it can to avoid or at least reduce inconvenience for its passengers. We appreciate your constructive criticism, as it will help us to continue improving our internal standards and procedures.
However, we regret that we cannot offer compensation in your case.
Legal regulations require that compensation has to be paid only when the airline is responsible for a flight arriving at its destination at least three hours late. If a flight is delayed by three hours (or more), compensation must only be paid if the delay was not caused by exceptional circumstances. Damage by third parties (particularly bird strikes), strike actions and bad weather are all recognised as examples of "exceptional circumstances". Unfortunately, we cannot pay additional damages in these cases either.
The one exception is expenses incurred by passengers while waiting (such as food and telephone calls). You are welcome to send us the relevant receipts for further consideration if your flight was delayed by more than two hours.
We can well understand your disappointment and apologise again for the fact that your flight did not operate as planned.
It is important to us that you continue to be one of our loyal and valued customers in spite of the inconvenience you have experienced. We hope that you continue to place your trust in Germanwings in the future. We assure you that we will do everything we can to ensure that your future trips run smoothly.
Yours faithfully,
Germanwings - Customer Relations
