FIFTY-SIX victims of long-haul flight deep vein thrombosis have launched a landmark compensation bid which could cost international airlines billions.

Lawyers for the 56, including Brenda Payne of Taylor Street, Bury, say they are just the tip of the iceberg and hundreds of other claims are waiting for the result of the case.

They argue airlines knew of the risks but continued to pack in the passengers.

Their counsel, Mr Stuart Cakebread, said the case concerned the phenomenon which has now entered the nation's vocabulary of "Economy Class Syndrome", an injury which can leave its victims crippled for life, or dead.

But the DVT victims must first prove their case against a number of major international airlines who are pointing to the 1929 Warsaw Convention in their bid to escape liability to pay damages.

The Convention, which placed strict limits on airline liability and the value of compensation pay-outs to injured passengers, was drafted "in the age of the bi-plane", Mr Cakebread told London's High Court.

And he argued that its drafters could never have intended that it would be used to escape liability in circumstances such as these.

Mr Cakebread said: "We are dealing with repeated, statistically predictable and relatively frequent deaths and injuries inflicted, the claimants say, by the acts and neglect of those they are paying to look after them."

Mrs Payne, of Taylor Street, Bury, took flights from Manchester to Amsterdam and Bangkok after winning a magazine competition. She is suing British Airways and China Airlines.

(Proceeding)

He said the "guiding principle" of the Warsaw Convention was that airlines should be held liable where their "faults" cause injury or death, "and should not be able to escape this by exclusion clauses and the like".