[azov]

Had a similar story with British Airways. My flight was cancelled last moment and I was rebooked for the next day - changing my direct flight to an inconvenient connection and arriving to the final destination over 24hrs late.

When I filled out compensation form they first lied to me about who operated the flight: it's not us, it's our codeshare! Once we sorted it out they lied about the distance: your disrupted journey was less than 1,500km, so here is less then half of your compensation (for a flight from London to San Francisco). I eventually got my full compensation, but it took several months of back and forth.

Airlines will absolutely lie to you, in writing, about the things that are trivial to verify. I guess there's no downside to them - in the best case some people may settle for no or smaller compensation, in the worst case they pay what they were supposed to pay anyway.

[byecancer21]

AF also tried to pull the codeshare thing with me once. Didn't want to go around in circles with customer service and found it easier to initiate litigation. AF then hired a big law firm to defend the tiny case.

A week before a scheduled court hearing their lawyer calls me to negotiate. I tell her there is nothing to negotiate about, and she agrees. We chat for an hour anyway which was surely billed to her client AF. I receive full payment two days later.

Haven't booked an AF flight since.

[cubefox]

What were you chatting about for an hour then?

[Scoundreller]

Which jurisdiction was this lawsuit filed?

[adhvaryu]

Interesting, I had a comp case with BA but it was very easy. Likely because they were clearly at fault (mechanical failure) but all I had to do was fill in one form and I had my money 3 months later.

I think the experience is circumstantial and definitely depends on how 'obviously' in fault the airlines is. All in all I came out with a profit of £200 but can't say 24 hours at an airport is worth it honestly.