Passenger rights
Depending on circumstances - your flight has been cancelled or delayed, you were denied boarding or your ticket was downgraded, you can claim your rights. Below you find a list of passenger rights in specific situations. Such minimum passenger rights apply only to passengers travelling within the Community, those departing from an airport in the Community to destinations in a third country, or leaving from an airport located in a third country for one situated in the Community when a Community carrier operates the flight.
Other passenger rights applicable in every case:
Right to obtain information about the identity of the operating air carrier - the air carriage contractor (including the air carrier, the tour operator and a ticket seller) are obliged to inform passengers about the identity of the air carrier or air carriers actually operating, regardless of the means used to make reservation. The information shall ensure that the passenger may check whether the operating air carrier is on the Community list of air carriers subject to an operating ban within the Community. Such information is published on the website of air carriers, airports and the Civil Aviation Office. In a case where the operating air carrier is on the Community list of air carriers subject to an operating ban, which has led to the cancellation of the flight concerned, or which would have led to such cancellation if the flight concerned had been operated in the Community, the passenger has a right to re-routing or reimbursement of the full cost of the ticket, provided that, where the flight has not been cancelled, the passenger has chosen not to take that flight.
Right to complain about the operating carrier - in a case of infringement of any of the air passenger rights mentioned above, the passenger has a right first to complain to the operating air carrier and after the operating carrier completed the complaint procedure, the passenger can lodge a complaint with a civil aviation authority. The body competent to examine complaints in the Republic of Poland is:
- The President of Civil Aviation Office (www.ulc.gov.pl)
- Committee for Passenger Rights Protection (tel. +48 22 520 74 39; e-mail: kopp@ulc.gov.pl)
In other cases of the air carrier’s failure to perform the contract, or performing it improperly - which includes in particular, damage to baggage, or an onboard accident resulting in passenger’s death or bodily injury, the passenger or the family are entitled to enforce the rights resulting from the contract of carriage before the competent court.
ATTENTION! The provisions on protection of the minimum passenger rights do not apply to passengers travelling free of charge or at a reduced fare not available directly or indirectly to the public. However, the exclusion rules do not concern passengers having tickets issued under a frequent flyer or other commercial programmes.
- Protection of minimum passenger rights is afforded by Regulation (EC) No 261/2004 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 February 2004 establishing common rules on compensation and assistance to passengers in the event of denied boarding, and of cancellation or long delay of flights, repealing Regulation (ECC) No 295/91 (entered into force on 17 February 2005) and Regulation (EC) No 2111/2005 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 14 December 2005 on the establishment of a Community list of air carriers subject to an operating ban within the Community and on informing air transport passengers of the identity of the operating air carrier, and repealing Article 9 of Directive 2004/36/EC (entered into force on 16 January 2006)
- As regards protection of minimum passenger rights, the flights between the European territory of the Member States and the French overseas departments are not treated as intra–Community flights.
