Flight delay? Get reimbursed with this clever app

When it launched in 2013, AirHelp made a simple promise: Report your flight disasters to the company’s customer service agents, and they’ll litigate against airlines on your behalf. You don’t have to pay a penny—unless they manage to get you a settlement. And when they do, the service takes a 25% cut. Simple. On Tuesday, the three-year-old company is taking its next step toward seamless airline compensation with an expansion of its namesake app. Offered free on the iTunes and Android Play stores, the app used to require that travelers fill out a short survey and provide a description of their issue to initiate a claim; now, travelers can simply scan an image of their boarding pass and let AirHelp take care of the rest. With the information from your boarding pass stored in the AirHelp system, the company can track your flight for delays, cancellations, and overbooking so claims can get rolling before you pick up the phone. “Before we came along, people didn’t know about their rights at all,” said AirHelp Chief Executive Officer Henrik Zillmer. “Most people don’t know the law—and even if they did, they might not know what they’re entitled to. It’s actually very complicated, and that’s why we exist.” Now, roughly one in three Europeans is aware of air passenger rights, according to Zillmer. “We still have a huge educational learning curve ahead of us.” To date, AirHelp has processed claims for 2m air passengers for a total compensation of $195m. (Zillmer said the average payout runs from $500 to $600, often divided among multiple family members flying together and filing a joint claim.) <br/>