Just read in the paper today the the "technical problems" loop hole has now been closed after a ruling by european judges. We can now claim £235 to £560 in compensation depending on the distance to be travelled.
listened to this on Radio 4 this morning and I noticed that they referred to European flights in relation to this, so maybe not applicable to long haul ex Euro flights..
Also wonderd if the fact that such compo may be claimed, would it "pressure" pilots to fly with defective aircraft, bad weather etc.
After all a flight with 300 passengers would cost the airline over £70,000 in payouts and I could see a pilot refusing once being a bit frightened to make a regular occurence of it.
I think that I would be prepared to forgoe compensation if I was sure that the aircraft did actually have a fault, rather than possibly fly on one that might not make it.
However, I take the point that a lot of people suspect that the airlines use this "loophole" to escape from penalties incurred by bad scheduling etc.