Never give up when an airline refuses to refund you for a missed trip. The lawyer Alessandro Palmigiano (this time in the role of traveler) and the former mayor of Palermo, Diego Cammarata, know this well. Due to family members feeling ill, they were unable to board and the airline denied them a refund. The justices of the peace of Palermo condemned the airlines with two separate sentences. Assisting Palmigiano were two colleagues from his law firm, lawyers Mattia Vitale and Licia Tavormina; while Diego Cammarata was assisted by Palmigiano himself together with Mattia Vitale.
The lawyer Palmigiano had been forced not to embark due to a health problem of his partner. The ruling of the justice of the peace, Antonio Cutaia, clarified that the protection of reimbursement for missed travel in the event of health reasons also extends to family members, understood in an extensive manner, in this case to the cohabitant.
The other case, which involved Diego Cammarata, dates back to 24 April 2023, when the former mayor was supposed to embark for Rome, and then take a connecting flight and reach New York as his final destination, together with his wife and daughter . On the day of the trip, however, her daughter felt unwell just as they were already at Palermo airport, which is why her parents took her to the Red Cross garrison inside the airport, where she was diagnosed and detected food toxicosis. In the meantime, the flight to Rome had taken off and the Cammarata family had therefore asked the company to travel on the next flight so as not to miss the connection to New York, and not to change the rest of the travel program. However, the Cammarata family was forced to spend the rest of the day at the airport. In the end, the solution found required additional costs and the upheaval of the travel plan, with the loss of a night in a hotel and related services, as well as an arrival at the destination the following day. The Justice of the Peace Giacoma Valenti ruled that “today’s appellants were not denied the possibility of leaving, due to the minor’s reported illness, on the 12.40 flight but, due to a change in skills between the stationmaster and the call center staff, the procedure was not completed and they had to board the flight the following day, with a significant increase in expenses” and, for this reason, the company was condemned.
