British Airways has paid a skier just over £11,000 after he claimed a drinks trolley smashed into his knee mid-flight.
Christopher, 50, said the incident happened when he was flying to San Francisco in California for a five-day skiing trip in January 2020.
The businessman, who lives in Sweden, began his journey in Stockholm with British Airways and stopped over in London where he transferred on to another flight to the US.
Christopher says it was an hour or so into the 10-hour British Airways flight from London when the trolley allegedly collided into his leg while he was sleeping in an aisle seat.
“I was dozing when the trolley came along, I didn’t see or hear it coming. When it hit me I saw stars,” he said.
“The pain, it went straight up my leg and through my spine. I shouted, ‘whoa what are you doing’, I was left shocked.
“During the flight my knee was really swelling, the pain was excruciating and there was a lot of discomfort.”
Christopher said he left the plane in a wheelchair and was taken straight to a medical facility in San Francisco airport, where he claims a doctor told him he couldn’t ski or fly.
He alleges medical centre staff told him to return home as soon as possible for further treatment - but argues that British Airways told him they couldn’t amend his ticket for free.
Instead, Christopher claims he was told he’d need to buy a new ticket.
He claims he spent the next few days in an airport hotel wearing a knee-brace instead of skiing with friends in Lake Tahoe in the Sierra Nevada mountains.
“I showed British Airways the medical report, but they told me I would have to buy another ticket at my own expense if I wanted to return earlier. The insult to injury was severe,” he said.
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Christopher said he reported his injured knee to a chief bursar on the flight who, he claims, examined his knee and said there was concern over thrombosis.
He was then said to have been moved to a seat with more leg room and offered in-flight pyjamas to provide him with looser clothing. Christopher also recalls being given “lots of ice and ibuprofen”.
After returning home, he claims was diagnosed with an injury to his patella tendon.
He contacted UK based travel litigation experts Hudgell Solicitors and was paid damages of £11,125. The case settled without an admission of liability.
The claim was brought under the Montreal Convention which governs international travel by air.
The Convention imposes a form of strict liability on airlines when it comes to personal injury during a flight or during one of the processes of embarking or disembarking at an airport.
Passengers do not have to prove fault. However, the person making a claim for damages must establish that there has been an “accident”.
To be a “qualifying accident” under the Convention, there must be an “unexpected or unusual event or happening that is external to the passenger”.
Hudgell Solicitors’ travel litigation executive Anne Thomson said: “We are seeing an increasing number of overseas clients making enquiries about accidents which occur during the course of international carriage by air.
“If [he] had been flying directly from Sweden to America on a Swiss or American airline, we would not have been able to assist him. However, because he flew via London Heathrow with an English airline, we could.
[His] injury was caused by a heavily laden trolley hitting his knee and this type of incident is, unfortunately, not uncommon.”
British Airways did not respond to requests for comment when approached by The Mirror.
