When a tourist’s flight is delayed, it is seen as a case in the Lapland District Court

Claims for a few hundred euros in aviation disputes are a spike in district court case statistics.

– The number is still small, but as a single type of story it is reasonably large,” says Kaski.

Small amounts involved

If your flight is delayed, you can claim compensation under EU law.

If, for one reason or another, the airline refuses to pay compensation, you can take the matter to court. Traditionally, such disputes have been settled in Finland by the Consumer Disputes Board.

However, in recent years, several law firms have been launched in Finland, which focus specifically on advancing flight compensation applications – even to court.

-If the matter is disputed, the matter can be dealt with in the airline or passenger’s domicile or in the location of the flight, that is, for Lapland flights, this means in practice the Lapland District Court, Kaski says.

However, most of the applications for flight compensation are still being dealt with in the Eastern Uusimaa District Court, where Helsinki-Vantaa Airport is located.

In Lapland, almost all applications for flight compensation are from the same company, the Danish Flehjælp Affairs Office, which operates in Finland as a flight aid.

There are not very much compensation in court.

For example, for the cancellation of a flight of less than 1,500 kilometers from the airline, in some cases, $ 250 can be reimbursed. If the flight is more than 3,500 kilometers, the compensation may in some circumstances be € 600.

Thousands of stories a year

A total of 24 applications for flight compensation arrived in the Lapland District Court last year.

However, in the annual number of district courts, the applications for flight compensation are still a small drop in the ocean. According to Kaske, about 25,000 things will be initiated in the Lapland District Court each year.

– Of course, about 20,000 are the summary stuff, most of which are handled in a written procedure, but the number is still huge, Kaski says.

In addition to the summary matters of Lapland, the Lapland District Court also deals with the summary matters in the Kainuu region. They refer to indisputable debt, such as leasing, consumer loans and telephone bills.

The stories are handled by six district secretaries, so about 3,500 things per year are accumulated for each of them.

Last year, last year, the Lapland District Court was in major disputes, including flight compensation applications.

– Compared to January last year, growth is up to hundreds of percent. Of course, this is still a short period of time, so let’s hope this will be a little leveled out over the year, Kaski says.

The poor economic situation shows

In addition to the tourist boom, on the other hand, the general deterioration of the economic situation is reflected in the number of stories in the district court.

According to Kaske, the number of debt settlement issues in particular has increased dramatically in Lapland.

– Compared to the beginning of last year, the number has almost doubled.

Nationally, the decline in the economy is reflected, inter alia, in the increase in the number of bankruptcy applications. For example, 128 companies were sought for bankruptcy during the third week of the year, which is the highest weekly reading throughout the 2020s.