ADR, enforcement body or court: which route for a refused compensation claim

The three routes side by side

When ADR is the better first step

Where the airline is a member of a scheme for your flight — AviationADR or CEDR in the UK, the Schlichtungsstelle Reise & Verkehr in Germany, MTV in France, AESA for flights from Spain, apf in Austria — ADR costs nothing, applies the same rules a court would and, in the binding schemes, ends with a decision the airline has agreed in advance to pay. A refusal written on a template often fails there because the scheme asks the airline for the evidence behind it. The ADR guide lists the schemes and their members.

When to go straight to court

• There is no scheme for the airline and the country — Ireland and Switzerland have none for flights; the Netherlands has none for standalone flights.
• The limitation period is close. A binding ADR procedure does not necessarily stop the clock; the ADR Directive only guarantees that a non-binding procedure does not make you lose the right to go to court (Art. 12). Check the deadline for your country.
• The airline ignores the scheme’s decision or the scheme declines the case.
• Spain, in reverse: AESA will not admit a claim you have already taken to court, so choose AESA first if you want both.

What the enforcement body is for

Every EU/EEA state, the UK and Switzerland designates a body under Article 16. Complain to the body of the departure country (or of the arrival country for an inbound flight on an EU carrier). It examines whether the airline complied and can sanction it; its view carries weight, and some airlines pay once it writes to them — but outside Spain, where AESA’s procedure is binding, it will not order the airline to pay you. Use it in parallel with the court, or where no ADR scheme exists.

The European Small Claims Procedure

For a cross-border claim — you live in one EU country, the airline is established in another — the European Small Claims Procedure works on standard forms without a lawyer (Regulation 861/2007):

• claims up to €5,000, excluding interest and costs (Art. 2(1));
• the airline must answer within 30 days of service (Art. 5(3)), and the court gives judgment within 30 days of the answer or asks for more (Art. 7(1));
• representation by a lawyer is not required (Art. 10), and the court fee may not exceed the national simplified procedure’s (Art. 15a);
• it applies in every EU country except Denmark, and not to UK courts since 2021.

National procedures do the same job at home: the county court small-claims track in England and Wales (up to £10,000), the juicio verbal in Spain (no lawyer below €2,000), the giudice di pace in Italy (self-representation up to €1,100), the justice de paix in Belgium (up to €5,000), the kantonrechter in the Netherlands (no lawyer up to €25,000), and the conciliation authority then the simplified procedure in Switzerland.

Which court

For a flight between two EU countries, the court for the place of departure or the place of arrival has jurisdiction, at your choice (Rehder, C-204/08), as do the courts of the airline’s seat — so a passenger can usually sue at home when the flight left from or landed there.

How Horvera fits in

Horvera is not an ADR scheme, an enforcement body or a court, and does not represent you there. The rejected-claim check tells you which of the three routes is open for your airline and departure country, from which date, and the court deadline; the full check then prepares the reply, the referral file and the chronology you would submit.