The delays were particularly bad, up to 24 hours long, for passengers on overnight trains. Helsingin Sanomat, e.g. wrote about a passenger whose train from Pasila to Rovaniemi was stuck in Hämeenlinna for 16 hours.
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Merja TuunanenVR’s director of public relations said on Monday that passengers whose train is delayed by at least one hour are entitled to compensation equal to 25 percent of the trip price, and passengers whose train is delayed by at least two hours are entitled to compensation. 50 percent of the price according to the EU regulation on the rights and obligations of train passengers.
The state company’s own instructions also state that if the train is delayed by more than four hours, the price will be refunded in full.
YLE on Monday reported that the railway company has already received thousands of compensation claims, the total value of which is estimated at 200,000 euros. Julia StolpVR’s communications specialist, said that the company has also received compensation for the additional costs caused by the delay.
“They are handled on a case-by-case basis,” he said. “We understand that some passengers have had to make their own decisions, such as taking a taxi to the airport independently, and are demanding reimbursement from us.”
Tuunanen told Helsingin Sanomat that VR has allocated all available resources to processing the requests to ensure that they are processed without undue delay.
When VR also incurs costs from the bus traffic it organizes and staff overtime, the total costs of the railway chaos will rise to several hundreds of thousands, according to Helsingin Sanomat.
Aleksi Teivainen – HT
Source: The Nordic Page