THE HAGUE – The Court in The Hague has ruled in three separate cases that passengers on delayed TUI Nederland flights between the Netherlands, Curaçao, and Bonaire are not entitled to financial compensation for delays caused during the major Amsterdam Airport Schiphol disruptions in September 2022.
The cases involved flights that were delayed by more than four hours, with passengers seeking compensation of several hundred euros each under European passenger rights regulations.
However, the court dismissed all claims.
The cases stemmed from the severe operational breakdown at Schiphol during the summer and autumn of 2022, when a major shortage of security personnel caused exceptionally long lines at security checkpoints.
At times, the queues stretched outside the terminal building, causing many passengers to miss their gates despite already being present at the airport.
To avoid leaving large numbers of travelers behind, TUI chose to delay departures to allow more passengers to board.
In one case, the court found that even three hours after the scheduled departure time, roughly half of the passengers had still not reached the gate because of the security delays.
The disruptions had a direct impact on TUI’s Caribbean rotation flights between Amsterdam, Curaçao, and Bonaire.
Because Flamingo International Airport closes at night, TUI even changed one flight route by flying first to Bonaire and then to Curaçao in an effort to complete the schedule.
The court ruled in two of the three cases that the staff shortage and security chaos at Schiphol constituted “extraordinary circumstances,” meaning TUI could not be held liable for compensation under European aviation law.
In the third case, the court found that TUI had not sufficiently proven that the specific flight delay was directly caused by the staffing shortage.
Even so, compensation was still denied.
The court ruled that it would be contrary to principles of fairness and reasonableness to award compensation when TUI had deliberately delayed flights in order to ensure passengers could still travel and avoid missing their vacations or return journeys.