Taking Ryanair to court?

Shona99

speedybee wrote: »

A familiar story. Ryanair abandoned me at Marakech airport on 6th Nov (Flight FR3506). No rerouting or other help was offered. We had to book with another airline and go back the next day at great expense. I have read the relevant EU regulations and am going to pursue them for a full and proper compensation, as I think what they said about bad weather was a big pile of dog droppings!

Looking at their previous record it looks like I will have to take them to the small claims court after a suitable period of futile letter writing.

Anyone any experience about whether it is better to pursue them through the English or the Irish courts?

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There are quite a few cases as discussed on the flightmole forum of court actions against various carriers for compensation (including claims for the costs of re-routing obligations under EC 261/2004).


Re your specific question re venue for proceedings see the following link regarding an appeal hearing (earlier this year) regarding a claim by passengers on court proceedings in Scotland regarding a claim by passengers against Ryanair-following a cancelled flight from Marrakesh to Germany. ( Its happened before!)

As you can see from this reported Scottish appeal hearing there may be quite complex jurisdictional issues involved-to which Ryanair in that case chose to dispute the right of a Scottish court to accept jurisdiction to hear the case.

http://www.scotcourts.gov.uk/opinions/SA726_07.html


What is the more convenient forum for you (i.e England or Ireland?).
The costs consequences of an action before a small claims court may be a factor.

One aspect often discussed on the flightmole forum is the availability of legal expenses insurance coverage on some travel insurance policies ( such as Direct Line and Churchill and Nat West travel policies amongst others and the coverage on home insurance policies (sometimes an optional feature).

You may wish to consider this prexisting legal expenses benefit. Most passengers dont even consider this aspect.

If there is a contested action against Ryanair it is possible that you may already have legal expenses coverage. This might be subject to a small deductible-often none at all.

Therefore you may wish to check this possibility of legal insurance-perhaps also post on the flightmole forum.

It might be possible to overcome this argument on England being a forum for proceedings ( I havent checked the destination from the flight number you gave-but this would depend upon the routing of your flight. What was the flight's destination?



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Moonchild

I would love to see someone actually go through with the whole process of taking Ryanair to court, but it has to be someone with a sense of humour, plenty of time, and a modicum of intelligence, where the principal is more important than the money, and you sound like the right person.

Set up a free blog, keep it updated, inform people on here of your progress, and a successful outcome could see you become the template for others in future.

Good luck!

speedybee

I do like the blog idea. Did rather fancy doing it myself rather than claiming on legal expenses. In my experience, the small claims court is very understandable for lay people and I have seem soliciters acting for other people do a really poor job. These are not lucrative cases.

in responce to the others. No, there was really no possability of flying out the next day with ryanair. All flights full to the middle of the next week and these were pretty expensive. We got an Atlasblue flight the next day for around £140 which was much cheeper than any other airline (inc ryanair) to get home.

ynot2005

its confusing to me speedybee your story, i expect you booked your return flight straightaway when the flight got cancelled.

but you have not mentioned what ryanair would have done the following day, some passengers from the cancelled flight must have been PUT on the friday flight or have been put on further flights over the coming days, there was spaces because the prices were expensive.

you did it yourself and that is probably what i would have done to save spending possibly a day or two more out there., but that isnt the same as ryanair abandoned me without any re-routing or any help.

the difference im sure with ryanair and say BA, is that someone would have been on the scene to re-assure you and book you on the next day flight or a.s.a.p but ryanair could have done the same without the nice customer service.

its annoying the bad customer service from ryanair in those circumstances but its not like they vanished from marakesh never to be seen again and left you behind.

i suspect if you had been first at the ryanair office on friday you may have been on the first flight out.

Norman-B

ynot2005 wrote: »

its confusing to me speedybee your story, i expect you booked your return flight straightaway when the flight got cancelled.

but you have not mentioned what ryanair would have done the following day, some passengers from the cancelled flight must have been PUT on the friday flight or have been put on further flights over the coming days, there was spaces because the prices were expensive.

you did it yourself and that is probably what i would have done to save spending possibly a day or two more out there., but that isnt the same as ryanair abandoned me without any re-routing or any help.

the difference im sure with ryanair and say BA, is that someone would have been on the scene to re-assure you and book you on the next day flight or a.s.a.p but ryanair could have done the same without the nice customer service.

its annoying the bad customer service from ryanair in those circumstances but its not like they vanished from marakesh never to be seen again and left you behind.

i suspect if you had been first at the ryanair office on friday you may have been on the first flight out.

in responce to the others. No, there was really no possability of flying out the next day with ryanair. All flights full to the middle of the next week and these were pretty expensive. We got an Atlasblue flight the next day for around £140 which was much cheeper than any other airline (inc ryanair) to get home

ynot2005

have a look at the next 4 words after your highlight norman-b, the flights are full or they aren't.

is it confusing you!

there seems to be a chunk of the story not being told, which is normal with ryanair moans, the facts sometimes get left out because it makes the story less sexy

whay happened to the rest of the passenegrs on friday, and what did ryanair offer to do?

Shona99

speedybee wrote: »

I do like the blog idea. Did rather fancy doing it myself rather than claiming on legal expenses. In my experience, the small claims court is very understandable for lay people and I have seem soliciters acting for other people do a really poor job. These are not lucrative cases.

in responce to the others. No, there was really no possability of flying out the next day with ryanair. All flights full to the middle of the next week and these were pretty expensive. We got an Atlasblue flight the next day for around £140 which was much cheeper than any other airline (inc ryanair) to get home.

You might be able to do both. ( i.e conduct the case yourself but not prejudice legal expenses insurance coverage just in case you did need it in the future-and perhaps also to answer the question in your opening post)

You could place your legal expenses insurer on notice and obtain their permission for you to take action yourself . ( By this method you could avoid prejudicing cover on the policy. The insurer would presumably agree to this action because you are effectively doing work yourself that they might otherwise have to pay for themselves by paying Solicitors).

If you did need to call upon lawyers in the future you havent prejudiced your position under the policy. Also if you have the benefit of such coverage it is just possible that an airline would settle with you sooner rather than later-knowing that you did benefit from the ability to fight a case with legal representation.

Another factor to consider with legal expenses insurance coverage is that the policy often contains a term whereby the legal expenses insurer retains the option to pay your claim rather than pay for all the costs of a dispute. If you had an airline that was intent on litigating to the full a dispute ( even where their defence was really lacking merit) you might just find that a legal expenses insurer would pay you off to compromise the claim.

If you are comfortable taking action yourself you should do this-the procedure is of course designed for this without legal representation (whether this be good bad or indifferent lawyers retained).

It may not be the procedure as such that led to your initial question-where to file suit-but substantive issues of jurisdiction and law-hence the link-regarding the prior Scottish case.

EC 261/2004 provides that the carrier should offer a choice of refund or re-routing. You say you were not offered that re-routing choice.

Article 8
(b) re-routing, under comparable transport conditions, to their final destination at the earliest opportunity;

The Article provides for re-routing at the earliest opportunity. The Regulation does no limit such re-routing to flights performed by the same carrier. The regulation does not say that re-routing is is not restricted to carriage on the operating carrier -in this case Ryanair). ( How could it be-what if they only travel that routing once a week?).

Your case presumably ( which appears entirely reasonable) would be that you simply mitigated your loss by providing a reasonable re-routing that the carrier was bound to provide under the Regulation. Otherwise just how long is a passenger expected to wait?

In addition you would presumably claim the compensation for the cancellation ( 250 or 400 Euros depending upon flight length) plus any additional hotel or meals and transport costs awaiting the re-routed flight. (These are bound to be provided under Art 9 of EC 261/2004).

You still need to decide which small claims court ( England/Scotland or Ireland) to start the small claims process-even if you are comfortable in the procedure itself.

bairn7

Moonchild wrote: »

I would love to see someone actually go through with the whole process of taking Ryanair to court, but it has to be someone with a sense of humour, plenty of time, and a modicum of intelligence, where the principal is more important than the money, and you sound like the right person.

http://www.scotcourts.gov.uk/opinions/SA105907.html

Admitedly not about flight cancellations but an interesting outcome re: delayed baggage!!

Norman-B

ynot2005 wrote: »

have a look at the next 4 words after your highlight norman-b, the flights are full or they aren't.

is it confusing you!

there seems to be a chunk of the story not being told, which is normal with ryanair moans, the facts sometimes get left out because it makes the story less sexy

whay happened to the rest of the passenegrs on friday, and what did ryanair offer to do?

Confused? Nope, not me! OP wrote that the next days flight was full. Good enough for me. If a plane holds, lets say 150. 150 turn up for the flight and the 150 from yesterday and they all want a seat. Umm, a problem.

ps, I happen to be a happy Ryanair flyer. Fly twice a year and never had a problem. OP did and is not happy and wants blood/compensation and fair play to him

Drea

ynot2005 wrote: »

have a look at the next 4 words after your highlight norman-b, the flights are full or they aren't.

is it confusing you!

there seems to be a chunk of the story not being told, which is normal with ryanair moans, the facts sometimes get left out because it makes the story less sexy

whay happened to the rest of the passenegrs on friday, and what did ryanair offer to do?

I thought they meant that the flights were full until the middle of the week and AFTER then the flights were too expensive?