How to protect your rights if your flight is delayed while traveling abroad?

After sorting out outbound travel disputes in recent years, the court found that overseas injuries and flight delays are the two most common situations that occur during outbound travel. How should passengers safeguard their rights? Now, let’s listen to the judge’s suggestions.

Situation 1: Injured abroad

Tourist demands full refund of travel expenses

In November 2012, Meng visited France, Germany, Italy and other places for 8 nights A 10-day tour group and paid a travel fee of 9,000 yuan. On the 26th of the same month, Meng took a bus from Switzerland to Italy. During the journey, the driver did not pay attention to the speed limit obstacle in front, and the vehicle did not slow down and crashed. Because Meng was not wearing a seat belt, he was ejected to the roof of the car and then fell to his seat. With the help of the tour guide, Meng was sent to a local hospital for treatment.

Meng said that at that time, he was in a foreign country where he was not familiar with the place and had to pay for all medical treatment out of his own pocket. The tour guide also told the team that the team would leave for the next place the next day, so Meng decided to sign the application for leaving the hospital. Considering that he had already paid for self-funded travel projects in advance, Meng got out of the car and walked around at the invitation of the tour guide every time he visited a scenic spot.

After returning to China, Meng continued to go to the hospital for treatment, and *** spent more than 3,000 yuan in medical expenses. "A good trip abroad brought back all the injuries." The more Meng thought about it, the more unconvinced he became, so he filed a lawsuit with the court, asking the travel agency to return all travel expenses and compensate him for medical expenses totaling 300,000 yuan.

During the lawsuit, it was determined that Meng had a tenth-level disability. During the trial, the travel agency pointed out that Meng failed to wear a seat belt according to safety instructions and should bear full responsibility. In this regard, the Wuxi Chong'an District Court held that Meng was injured during the trip and the travel agency failed to ensure that Meng safely completed the travel project, which constituted a breach of contract. However, the breach of contract was caused by the travel agency driver's failure to drive carefully and Meng's failure to wear a seat belt. Therefore, the travel agency should bear 50% of the liability for compensation. Accordingly, the travel agency was sentenced to compensate Meng for medical expenses, nursing expenses, disability compensation, etc. totaling more than 30,000 yuan.

The judge said

The travel agency must be held responsible for failing to provide necessary safety protection

Tourists living abroad in unfamiliar places and with language barriers will inevitably be at a loss if they encounter disputes . Yin Tianhua, the judge in charge of the case, said that if tourists encounter a situation similar to Meng's, they can require the travel agency to immediately take necessary rescue and disposal measures in accordance with the provisions of the Tourism Law. For losses caused by personal safety accidents, if the travel agency fails to perform necessary prompts, reminders, rescue, and safety guarantee obligations, the travel agency shall bear responsibility.

However, from the perspective of prevention and risk sharing, the judge reminded tourists that they should first improve their self-safety awareness, and secondly, purchase relevant insurance to provide protection for their journey.