EasyJet flight cancellations - Refunds & Compensation advice/howto?

jaruz

Hi,

I have been one of the unlucky few whose EasyJet flight was cancelled. We were scheduled to depart today (24 Dec) at 07:50 from London Stansted (STN) to Asturias (OVD). Check-in opened at 04:50 AM. We woke up at 3:30 AM, checked the EasyJet Website at 03:40 AM and there was no mention of the flight being cancelled (just 4 flights were on the list of cancellations, and ours was not one of them). We took the first Stansted Express (04:40 AM), and upon arrival at Stansted at 5:20 AM we were shocked to see that our flight had been cancelled without any prior notice (the weather wasn't that bad, and most other airlines/flights did not seem to have cancellations).

Besides having to miss Christmas with our family, we incurred in various additional unexpected costs. We understand EasyJet offers a 'refund' but the FAQ on their site is not quite clear as to what this encompasses. Thus I am posting this message for any advice, hints, tips, that might be useful for me and any other EasyJet passengers who have been through the same ordeal these past few days.

Our story: after scrambling (at 6 AM on various slow Internet connections at Stansted) to find another way to get to northern Spain, we managed to book a flight through Vueling from London Heathrow to Bilbao, tomorrow (Friday 25) at 17:35, arriving 20:25. Bilbao is more than 230 kilometers away from our original destination but only EasyJet goes to Oviedo and there were no flights available till December 30; thus to get to our destination in Asturias, we had to book a taxi (there are no trains or buses).

So we are spending:

• Taxi to Heathrow (no public transportation available tomorrow): 36 GBP
• Flight to Bilbao: 195 EUR (total for 2 people)
• Taxi to destination: 250 EUR

TOTAL rescheduled trip cost: 435 GBP.

And today we incurred on these unnecessary costs:

• 4:00 AM Taxi to Liverpool Street Station: 20 GBP (no receipt unfortunately)
• Stansted Express to Stansted (booked through EasyJet): 34.40 GBP (2 pax)
• BT Openzone 45-minute Voucher: 3.91 GBP (with invoice)
• Internet Access time at BAA Stansted: 5.00 GBP (with invoice)
• Coin-activated Internet access: 6 GBP (no receipt)
• Stansted Express back to London: 38 GBP
• Taxi back to flat: 15 GBP (with receipt)

TOTAL unnecessary costs: 122.31 GBP

Our original EasyJet flight booking had cost 319.96 GBP (not including the Stansted Express).

If we follow EasyJet's on-line refund process, what are our rights? Should they just refund the 319.96 GBP from the flight? Are we entitled to any additional compensation for incurred costs (i.e. Stansted Express back to London, taxi back to the flat)? What about any costs regarding the rescheduled trip to get to our original destination?

Thanks you all for your time!

Caz3121

do you have any travel insurance?

Lehman

I once had similar situation when my flight was cancelled from London City Airport without prior notice due to fog. Although it is better to land safely than fall into the sea, still annoying that airlines don't give prior notice. In your case, perhaps the bus ticket was more expansive than the Easyjet flight.

jaruz

Hi Caz3121: no, I didn't book travel insurance. The flight was booked months ago, and I hadn't expected this kind of weather either. Although I am not quite sure it was cancelled due to the weather, since all other flights were departing as expected from Stansted. I have the feeling EasyJet needed the plane for some other flight, but there is no way to be sure of what really happened?

Has anybody else here on the forum been affected by these December 2009 cancellations? Have you successfully submitted a refund application? Did you ask/get any additional compensation?

jaruz

Hi Caz3121: I am mistaken; I completely forgot back in April I bought travel insurance... it is a "Cheaper Travel Insurance, in association with InsureandGo." policy, which I got from moneysupermarket.com. It is valid till April 2010. I'll have a read through the policy document to understand if I can claim anything back from them.

dimepop

Hi Jaruz, i think we are in the same situation, 3 friends from Asturias flying home yesterday in the same flight and after cancellation booking the vueling flight to Bilbao.
My father is coming to pick us up unfortunately the car is gonna be full otherwise i'll offer you a ride.
My advice is get a travel insurance i got one for me and my wife, costed less than 30 quid a year for both of us and already missed a flight due to train cancellation and they covered with all the costs.
Hopefully they will do the same again.
i am with direct-travel insurance if it helps.
I will also claim the Easyjet refund and compensation of course.
I'll probably see you at the airport.... but not recognize you.
Anyway... good luck.
Puxa asturies..

sookiestackhouse

Dear Jaruz,

We are in a similar situation. Our flight on Monday 21st December from London Gatwick to Faro was cancelled. Like you we were given less than three hours notice, indeed we had travelled at expense to the airport not to mention staying up all night in order to be ready for the flight.

Once we arrived at the airport it was 3.30am and no sign of life, our flight was due to depart 6.35am and check in was 4.45am.

We went to get a drink and twenty minutes later we arrived back upstairs in departures to find chaos. We joined a queue of people being herded over by someone shouting "anyone for flights to Faro and Zurich?". We were then told by a woman that our flight was cancelled and that we should "go home and not bother calling cutomer services as they would be too busy to deal with us".

We tried to find an alternative route but flights with other carries were £400, money we didn't have as a result my Grandad is spending christmas alone in Portugal.

The most important point I would make is to ask whether at the time you were informed of your cancellation were you handed a piece of paper by Easyjet stating your options. This would contain a suggestion to re-route or to obtain a refund from Easyjet. If the answer is yes you may see in small print that Easyjet are required to give you a copy of EC Regulation 261/2004. This is crucial to a claim in compensation. If they have not provided you with this you can find it on the internet and the rights to compensation are contained within this law. Whether it was given to you or not your rights to compensation remain the same.

From your situation which is similar to ours a claim in compensation will be rebutted by Easyjet as they will use the defence of 'extra ordinary circumstances' owing to weather conditions. They must prove this. They must also prove that this was unforeseen and could not have been reasonably avoided if steps had been taken.

We are going to continue with a claim however, and will do whatever it takes to get it. I am surprised more people have not written on forums; there were cancellations at least 5 days in a row and I would infer from that thousands of angry people. I do not think Easyjet will be willing to dole out compensation without a fight, the more people willing to write to them the more notice they will have to take. In some circumstances not even monetary compensation can ever recover what you missed out on due to the cancellation, but Easyjet need to know that there are consequences for inadequate service.

Good luck.

ferngo

I know exactly what you mean The same thing happened to us , we had a flight out of Gatwick on the 20th December with easy jet and it got cancelled. The way it got cancelled was also strange to say the least as other flights were arriving and taking off. We were in the departure lounge and called over the intercom system.
We were told to go and collect our bags and then given a piece of paper with instructions for refund. We were also told that we could find alternative flights and that easyjet would pay. We could not find alternative flights and so came home.
This was a very diturbing time as we were going to visit my sister who has bone cancer and this was supposed to be a family re-union.

Well I sent easyjet a letter and this is the reply I received:


I regret that I have been unable to respond to your e-mail sooner and I hope this has not caused you too much inconvenience. I would like to sincerely apologise for the inconvenience that the disruption to your flight may have caused you.

I request you to confirm the cancellation of insurance in the booking. To proceed with the cancellation of insurance, I would require a written authorization from you to cancel the insurance in following format:

"I wish to confirm that passengers .......... will not be travelling on the following flights:
(flight number), (flight date), (route) and I also want to cancel the insurance in the booking."

As a low cost airline, we have certain restrictions and as such easyJet is a point-to-point carrier. Therefore, when you book a flight with easyJet we agree to transport you from airport to airport, but cannot assist with parking. Therefore, in this case, I regret that I am unable to offer reimbursement of your car parking.


Customer Services
easyJet Airline Company Limited
Hangar 89
London Luton Airport
Luton
Bedfordshire
LU2 9PF
United Kingdom

If you would forward this to me at your earliest convenience, I would give this matter my prompt attention. I wish you and your family a very Happy and a Prosperous New Year.

Now I have replied to easyjet asking for a breakdown of the credit with instruction were to send the money and they replied by sending the same letter back as above. I am uneasy about sending them instructions to cancel my flight and insurance as this is admitting it's my fault which is not. Do you have any ideas as to what I should do, should I follow the court option ?
Easyjet has to be the worse airline I have ever encountered and I for one will never ever use them again. We were treated like sheep at the airport and talked down to as if we were stupid ! No one could give us a valid reason about the flight cancellation, we heard that it was because of the weather, but we pointed out that other flights were still flying so they changed the story to say the pilots needed a break as they had too many hours of flighing. Are these people for real or what?

Inactive

Send an email to andy@easyjet.com, that will go directly to Mr Andrew Harrison, the Chief Executive of easyjet, it is not a private email address and was in fact published in an in-flight magazine recently, it was the only way that I managed to eventually get a refund from them.

Their online system appears to be designed to avoid customer contact.:rolleyes:

amymac82

I had a flight cancelled by easyjet right before christmas and was disgusted by their 'customer service', or complete lack of it. So now I am seeking compensation in line the the EU regulation [FONT=&quot]No 261/2004, since both airports involved in the cancelled flights were fully fuctioning and other airlines (Ryanair!) seemed to have no problem flying that route I don't think they can prove that there were "extraordinary circumstances", I mean it just snows in winter, that is pretty normal. I wrote them a letter to which I expect no useful outcome, so then I think I will try these guys: euclaim. co. uk (I am a new user so i can't add the link but you can google it) who are a sort of no-win-no-fee company who seek the compensation on your behalf. They take a cut of course but any compensation is better than none as far as I am concerned!
[/FONT]

Moneyhero

Just in the process of making a claim against Easyjet for a cancelled homebound flt on Dec 18 2009. So far they have refunded the cost of my tickets and offered an additional £120 per person towards my cost of getting home. This still leaves an £80 per person shortfall so am still 'in negotiations' awaiting for their next response. I haven't used the EU Reg yet, that will be next. You can download a PDF version, so a google search on "Official Journal of the European Union L 46/1" - should take you here: http eur-lex.europa.eu/lexuriserv/lexuriserv.do?uri=oj:l:2004:046:0001:0007:en:pdf


Likewise, both airports were operating normally so hopefully they won't try the 'unavoidable situation' card.
It's worth downloading the PDF so you can cut and paste the relevant bits into your Emails, it also shows the carriers responsibilities to their customers in the event of cancellatiion.. Best of Luck