Laos — Department of Civil Aviation, Ministry of Public Works and Transport

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

• Laos is in the Warsaw system, not the Montreal ConventionThis is the thing to know. Laos is not a party to the Montreal Convention 1999, so international carriage with a place of departure or destination in Laos falls back into the older Warsaw system: much lower liability limits, and shorter written-notice periods for baggage — three days for damage and fourteen for delay under the unamended Convention rather than seven and twenty-one. If a carrier quotes you a Montreal figure for a Vientiane or Luang Prabang flight, it has not checked which treaty applies.
• 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 airlineWrite to the carrier with the flight details, the disruption and your itemised loss.Claim direct·typically 30 days
2. 02Department of Civil Aviation, Lao PDRThe Department regulates carriers operating to, from and within Laos.Regulator·typically 90 days·official page
3. 03Civil court claimBinding on themAvailable in principle; proportionate only where the loss was substantial.Small claims·typically 180 days