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I'll likely be taking easyJet to court over a meal expense; they claim the flight in question was only delayed by 50 minutes, while in fact it was delayed by 2.5 hours on departure (the threshold being 2 hours for the relevant route).

FWIW it's this flight: https://www.flightaware.com/live/flight/EZY8106/history/20240801/2305Z/LEIB/EGKK https://www.flightera.net/en/flight_details/easyJet-Ibiza-London/U28106/LEIB/2024-08-02

What evidence would a judge be likely to accept as proof that easyJet is mistaken about the delay? I've had one individual nonchalantly dismiss FlightAware in a different context, and the other options I'm familiar with are FlightRadar24 and Flightera as well as requesting an email confirmation from the departure airport.

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Your mere testimony under oath (either affidavit or vocal from the witness stand) that the plane was delayed by 2.5 hours will be admissible evidence.

Likewise, the airline's assertion that it was only 50 minutes will be admissible.

From that alone, the judge will need to decide who is telling the truth — unless either side presents some extra proof other than their own memory. This can be anything that helps to reconstruct the timeline of events. You only need a tiny little clue to tip the balance of probabilities in the judge's mind from 50/50 to 51/49 in your favour to win. So, the bits and pieces may include for example:

  • Other witnesses. Maybe someone you had a conversation with during the delay.

  • Any digital footprint of what was happening with you and/or the plane between the scheduled and actual departure time. E.g. photos taken at the gate or from within the plane, the precise time your card was charged for a cup of coffee and so on.

  • Flight tracking data. This can be either publicly available, or could be subpoenaed from the airport and/or the airline internal records.

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    And I would have thought an airport would know when each plane landed and took off.
    – gnasher729
    Commented Sep 8 at 7:49
  • In a case like that I would not expect the judge to 'start at 50/50'. It seems very reasonable to assume that the airline has very accurate data on the exact times of the flight. So OP has to convince the judge that the airline is lying/ in error. That will take a lot more than just saying 'I remember it was 2.5 hours'. Flight tracking data or some similar official source should work. Everything else I would doubt will do much.
    – quarague
    Commented Sep 22 at 8:28

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