The free routes: regulators and ADR schemes

On this page 18

1. Two different things
2. Which one applies to your flight
3. Before you escalate, do this
4. What the process is actually like
5. How long it takes
6. The limitation trap
7. What a decision gets you
8. If the scheme decides against you
9. Why this matters for the claim-company question
10. Practical tips
11. Worth remembering
12. Finding out whether your airline is in a scheme
13. Referral deadlines are short
14. What a good submission looks like
15. If the airline settles after you refer
16. Running two things at once
17. Why so few passengers use these routes
18. Worth doing even on a small claim

Between writing to the airline and suing it sits a layer most passengers never use: free dispute resolution, provided either by a national enforcement body or by an independent ADR scheme the airline has signed up to. These routes cost nothing, require no legal knowledge, and in the ADR case produce a decision the airline is bound by.

They are also the single strongest argument against paying a claim company a third of your money, because the main thing most firms actually do is this.

Two different things

A national enforcement body is the regulator responsible for making airlines comply with passenger rights law in its country. Every EU state has one, as does the UK. It can investigate, take enforcement action and express a view on your case, though in some countries it will not order a specific payment to you.

An ADR scheme is an independent, approved body that adjudicates individual disputes between a consumer and a business that has subscribed to it. Its decision binds the business if you accept it. This is a genuinely useful mechanism and it is the better route where it is available.

Which one applies to your flight

Your flight	Route
Departed the UK, airline in an ADR scheme	That ADR scheme
Departed the UK, airline not in a scheme	The CAA's own complaints route
Departed an EU state	That state's enforcement body
Arrived in the UK on a UK or EU carrier	UK route
Arrived in the EU on an EU carrier	The arrival state's body
Touched Canada	The Canadian Transportation Agency

The recurring mistake is writing to the regulator in the airline's home country rather than the country of departure. A flight from Madrid on a German airline is a Spanish matter. Passengers lose months this way.

Before you escalate, do this

Every one of these routes will ask whether you gave the airline a chance to resolve it. So:

1. Claim directly, in writing, with the flight details, the arrival gap, the distance band and a specific figure.
2. Wait fourteen days, then chase once with a seven-day deadline.
3. Keep the reference numbers, the dates, and whatever came back.

Most schemes require you to have waited a defined period — commonly eight weeks — or to have received a final response, before they will take the case. Escalating too early gets the file bounced back and you start the wait again. The escalation timetable.

What the process is actually like

Documentary, and undramatic. You complete an online form, upload your evidence, and describe what happened and what you are claiming. The scheme puts it to the airline, which responds. You may get a chance to comment on the response. Then a decision.

No hearing, no appearance, no lawyers. The entire thing happens by email and web form over a period of weeks or months.

What you upload is the file you should already have: booking confirmation, boarding pass, evidence of the arrival time, your claim letter, and the airline's response or the record of its silence. What to have ready.

How long it takes

Expect months rather than weeks. ADR schemes typically work to target timescales of several weeks from the point the case is accepted, but acceptance itself can take time and complex cases run longer. National enforcement bodies are generally slower, and some have had very substantial backlogs.

This is the central trade-off. The route is free and the decision can bind the airline, but you are buying that with patience. A small claim filed online is usually faster.

The limitation trap

Worth stating clearly because it catches people. A regulator or ADR scheme holding your file does not stop the limitation clock. If your claim is governed by a two-year period and you spend fourteen months in an ADR queue, you have fourteen months less to issue proceedings.

In the UK and Ireland, with five and six year periods, this is comfortable. In jurisdictions with two or three year limits it is a genuine risk, and in those cases going straight to court may be the better decision despite the fee. Deadlines by country.

What a decision gets you

An ADR decision that you accept binds the airline, which must then pay. If you reject it, you remain free to litigate — the scheme's decision does not bind you unless you accept it, which is a useful asymmetry.

A national enforcement body's involvement varies more. In some countries it will determine your individual case; in others it supervises compliance generally and its view, while influential, is not an order to pay you. Either way an official finding that the airline was wrong is a substantial asset if you do end up in court.

If the scheme decides against you

You have lost nothing but time, and you can still issue a court claim if you believe the decision was wrong. In practice a reasoned decision against you is worth reading carefully, because it usually identifies the weakness — most often that the airline did evidence a genuine extraordinary circumstance, or that the arrival delay fell short of the threshold.

Why this matters for the claim-company question

The usual argument for paying a firm a third is that escalation is daunting and you will otherwise give up. That argument is much weaker where a free, binding, form-based route exists for your flight.

So before signing anything, check whether your airline belongs to an ADR scheme. If it does, the firm's contribution is completing a web form you could complete yourself, for a fee of perhaps £170 on a £520 claim. If it does not, and the airline is foreign and unresponsive, the calculation is different and paying someone may be entirely rational. The honest comparison.

Practical tips

• Be brief and factual. These are documentary processes assessed by people reading many files. Lead with the flight, the times, the distance and the figure.
• Upload rather than describe. A screenshot of the airline's notification beats a sentence saying what it said.
• Include the airline's refusal, because it commits the carrier to a stated reason the scheme can test.
• Claim everything at once — compensation, and separately the care expenses with receipts — rather than running two processes.
• Note that you asked for particulars. If you asked the airline to evidence an extraordinary circumstance and it did not, say so and attach the exchange.

Worth remembering

Check for an ADR scheme first, go to the departure country's body otherwise, and do not let a free route run so long that a short limitation period expires underneath it. These processes are slow, free and genuinely effective, which is an unusual combination and one most passengers never discover.

Finding out whether your airline is in a scheme

There is no single universal list that stays accurate, so the reliable method is to ask the airline directly. Its final response to your claim should tell you which ADR body it subscribes to and how long you have to refer the matter — that disclosure is part of what a final response is supposed to contain.

If the airline has not given you a final response, ask in one line: "Please confirm which approved alternative dispute resolution body you subscribe to, and the time limit for referring this claim to it." That question is useful twice over. It identifies your route, and it is itself a nudge, because an airline being asked about ADR knows the claim is heading there.

The airline's own complaints page usually names the scheme as well, generally at the bottom of the page in the section nobody reads.

Referral deadlines are short

This is the part that catches people who have been patient. ADR schemes generally require a referral within a defined window after the airline's final response — commonly twelve months, sometimes less. Miss it and the free route closes, even though your underlying claim may have years left to run in court.

So when a refusal arrives, note two separate dates: the ADR referral deadline, and the limitation date for a court claim. They are different, they are governed by different rules, and the first is usually much closer than the second.

What a good submission looks like

Caseworkers read a great many of these, and the ones that resolve quickly share a shape. Open with the facts in four lines: flight, date, route, and the arrival gap at the final destination. State the amount claimed and the basis for it. Then describe the exchange with the airline in chronological order, with dates. Then attach the documents.

Resist the temptation to describe the experience. The missed wedding, the unhelpful staff and the night on a terminal floor are genuinely bad and they are not what is being decided. The question is whether a fixed sum is payable under a regulation, and a submission that answers only that question is easier to decide in your favour.

One exception: where you are claiming care expenses, the circumstances do matter, because reasonableness is the test. Explain briefly why you booked the hotel you booked and what you were told at the airport.

If the airline settles after you refer

Common, and worth anticipating. Referring to an ADR scheme costs the airline a case fee in many schemes regardless of outcome, which changes the economics of a claim it had been ignoring. A settlement offer frequently appears within days of a referral.

Check what the offer covers before accepting, particularly whether it includes any care expenses you claimed separately, and get it in writing. Then tell the scheme the matter is resolved, which closes the file cleanly.

Running two things at once

You cannot usually have the same claim live in an ADR scheme and in court simultaneously, and schemes generally decline cases that are already the subject of proceedings. Pick one route and follow it.

What you can do is sequence them: ADR first because it is free, then court if the decision goes against you and you think it was wrong, provided limitation still allows. That sequence only works if you watched the limitation date while the free route was running, which is the single discipline this whole article depends on.

Why so few passengers use these routes

Partly because they are badly signposted. The existence of a free, binding adjudication is disclosed in the small print of a final response letter that many passengers never receive, because the airline simply went quiet instead. Partly because the word "regulator" suggests a body that polices the industry in general rather than one that will look at your specific flight.

And partly because claim companies advertise heavily and these schemes do not advertise at all. The asymmetry is commercial rather than legal: one side has a marketing budget funded by a share of passengers' compensation, and the other is a statutory process with a web form.

The practical consequence is that a large number of people pay a third of their claim for access to something that was free and sitting one question away.

Worth doing even on a small claim

Because it costs nothing, the usual calculation about whether a claim is worth the effort does not apply in the same way. A £220 short-haul claim that you would not take to court is perfectly worth a web form and a few months of waiting, since the only thing you are spending is the half hour it takes to upload the file you already assembled.

That is the real argument for knowing these routes exist: they make small claims viable that would otherwise be abandoned, which is precisely the category airlines rely on going away.

Ask the airline which scheme it belongs to, and the rest follows.

Questions people ask about this