Corporations are guilty of disingenuous nonsense when they scaremonger about claims.

The problem with David, of David and Goliath renown, was he ruined it for everyone else.

Sure, he won his battle, but the giant community was furious and took it out on all other minions. Then the giants armed themselves and built better weapons, all in order to crush the next pipsqueak that caused them problems.

Ron Huzar is another David who has spoilt flights for the rest of us.

Forget that he was delayed by 27 hours coming from Malaga to Manchester. Forget that he went unrepresented into the county court with a compensation claim, only to be met with a 10-inch bundle of documents and a formidable barrister in opposition.

Forget that he’s had to spend three years of his life trying to secure £350 and faces another date in future at the Supreme Court.

Indeed, forget that the court quite reasonably decided that an airline could be blamed for technical faults that cause delays.

Because grandad Ron has ensured we won’t even get a smile for the extortionate price of flights in future.

This was Jet2’s response after the court of appeal judgment: ‘Our focus is to deliver a friendly service and low fares to our customers and we sincerely hope that this will not be jeopardised by today’s ruling.’

You hear that Ron? They can’t even guarantee a friendly service because of you! I hope you enjoy your £350 – there are airline shareholders that won’t even get their new Mercedes this year thanks to your greed. Think on that Ron.

The airline’s response was, of course, first-rate hogwash. Passengers’ rights to compensation make zero difference to whether a cabin attendant will smile as you board the plane.

And despite the rhetoric, this should barely make a hint of difference to the cost of fares – independent estimates put the expected extra cost for each passenger at a maximum of €3.

Wouldn’t it be lovely if once – just once – the giant came out after a case and said: ‘Fair enough, we screwed up here. Rather than carry on this legal game, we’re going to go away and do our damndest to try and make sure we don’t have a single delay to compensate for in the future.’

But no, we get threats and scaremongering, just like the insurance industry does when it threatens to raise premiums if we make claims against it. Goliath throws his toys out the pram and threatens to punish everyone for David having the temerity to take him on.

And we’re not even guaranteed a big friendly giant anymore.

John Hyde is a Gazette reporter

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