Afghanistan — Afghanistan Civil Aviation Authority

The clocks it starts

• Two years for a Warsaw Convention claim (Art. 29)Art. 29 extinguishes the right to damages if an action is not brought within two years of arrival, of the date the aircraft ought to have arrived, or of the date carriage stopped. Courts treat it as extinguishing the right rather than barring the remedy, so unlike an ordinary limitation period it is not suspended by correspondence and cannot be waived by the carrier.Warsaw Convention 1929, Art. 29 — Art. 29Limitation period

What it entitles you to, beyond money

• Afghanistan is in the Warsaw system, not the Montreal ConventionAfghanistan is not a party to the Montreal Convention 1999. International carriage with a place of departure or destination in Afghanistan falls into the older Warsaw system, with materially lower liability limits and shorter written-notice periods for baggage claims. Any Montreal figure quoted to you for such a journey is the wrong figure.
• If your itinerary touches India, the Indian regime is probably the stronger claimThe DGCA Civil Aviation Requirements bind any airline operating to or from India, including foreign carriers, and they pay real money for denied boarding, short-notice cancellation and involuntary downgrading. Regional itineraries very often route through Delhi or Mumbai without the passenger thinking of India as part of the journey. If any leg of your ticket departed from or arrived in India, work out the Indian claim before spending time on a regime we could not price.
• Warsaw Convention damages for delay (international carriage)Art. 19 of the Warsaw Convention makes the carrier liable for damage occasioned by delay in the carriage of passengers and baggage, and Art. 20 gives it a defence where it proves it took all necessary measures to avoid the damage or that it was impossible to take them. Like the Montreal claim it pays the loss the delay actually caused you rather than a fixed sum, so it lives on receipts. The ceiling depends on which Warsaw-system instrument the two States have in common — the 1929 Convention, the Hague Protocol of 1955, or the Montreal Additional Protocols of 1975 — and the figures differ between them, so we state none. The action is extinguished two years after arrival under Art. 29, and that period is a hard extinction rather than an ordinary limitation.Art. 19, Art. 20

Where to take it next

1. 01Written claim to the airlineComplain to the carrier in writing first, with the flight, the disruption and the loss it caused, and ask which provision of the national civil aviation regulations it says applies. The regulator will ask whether you did, and the carrier's written answer is your evidence.Claim direct·typically 30 days
2. 02Afghanistan Civil Aviation AuthorityThe ACAA is the civil aviation regulator. Practical access to any Afghan complaints route is limited, and a claim against a foreign carrier is usually better pursued in the jurisdiction of the other end of the ticket.Regulator·typically 90 days·official page
3. 03Consumer forum or civil courtBinding on themAvailable where the carrier refuses. Several states in the region run consumer forums that hear service-deficiency complaints cheaply and without a lawyer, which is the proportionate route for a disruption claim.Small claims·typically 180 days