FLIGHT DISRUPTIONS: Volcano ash from Iceland hits UK flight plans

agent_orange_2

This is a bit of a convoluted yarn.

It would now seem our flights with virgin for tues are in serious doubts. Unfortunately, due to a family tragedy, my wife returned home last Monday. The rest of my family, 1 child and 2 young adults are with me here in florida. My eldest son joined us direct from Australia and was to fly home separately (same day) on a us airlines flight to Dublin and then on to stansted with ryanair. With the problems of re-booking our 3 virgin flights it could be very difficult to try and re-book the us airline flight as well - let alone, if the flights leave on different days.
Would I be able to transfer my Wife's Virgin atlantic seat to my son name?

Pelican_eats_pigeon

diddyangel wrote: »

Can anyone direct me to a site that CLEARLY states the passengers rights under the EC regulations. Some freinds are stuck in Europe and airline (easyjet) refusing to pay for food and acomodation. They have re-booked them for a flight in 7 days time but did also offer a refund which they don't want they just want to get home asap. What can they do? Should easyjet being paying for them to stay or is that at their cost? The booked flight and accom separately.

Easyjet have to cover food and accommodation till they can re-route them. There is not very much in the way of sensible and clear coverage anywhere. However:

• The airline must give passengers the choice of cancelling and receiving a full refund OR being rerouted to their destination at the first available opportunity.
• If the passenger chooses a refund their relationship with the airline ends.
• If the passenger chooses re-routing, the airline must provide 1) Food and water; 2) accommodation where necessary, 3) transfers to accommodation and 4) two phone calls.

There are no grounds for not fulfilling these obligations.

Here is the legislation in question, EC Regulation 261/2004. The actual text of the legislation starts about one-third of the way down the page where it says "Article 1". Articles 5 and 9 are the relevant ones for this instance.
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:32004R0261:EN:HTML

The Regulation seems to strongly suggest that the airlines should provide these things up front rather than tell people to arrange things themself and then offer reimbursement, by the way.

JanCee

Have asked this on another thread but no replies yet.

We are booked on an American Airlines flight from Manchester to Chicago tomorrow at 10.00am. On the AA website the flight is not showing as cancelled. Are we expected to turn up at the airport even though the news updates state that there will be no flights until 17.00? Am unable to get through to our tour operator.

Salisbury

I hope this helps others in a similar situation.

We were due to travel back from Munich to Gatwick on Thurs and rescheduled for Sat. When we saw the weather forecast we realised we could be delayed for weeks and decided to head for the ferry. Eurostar was sold out til Weds earliest.

The good....
We booked a ticket for Sunday for 2 adults and 2 kids to Paris with DB for 350 euros (kids are free). 150 euros from Paris to Calais. Took around 8 hours. All very smooth, but the train was full, so you need to book.

The bad.
Taxi from Calais station to port was 45 euros for a 10 min ride because 'its a Sunday'....

The shocking.:mad:
We tried to book a foot passenger ticket on Friday for Sunday, but the earliest was Monday. I called P&O UK and Germany 3 times and waited, then was cut off. I tried Norfolkline and they said they don't accept foot passengers for H&S reasons ?!? However, they did say that the P&O were accepting passengers on a first come first served basis and it shouldn't be a problem. We arrived at 16:30 and were sailing by 17:45. The shocking thing was they had locked out internet bookings at 48 euros so that they could charge us 195 euros at the port. Some people paid 230 euros for 4 adults! Conversely, a lady we met got her husband to drive onto the Ferry in UK, collect her & 2 kids from Calais and return 2 hours later for less than 50 GBP. Someone needs to do something about this. Its immoral, targets the foot passengers with no other options, is dispassionate and illustrates pure greed. Surely in post bank crisis territory they should have learned a few lessons. I hope the Government stings them for a windfall tax.

The entertaining...
A couple of blokes we met on the train to Paris had booked on Norfolkline for 12 Euros each for a bike crossing, but they had both 'lost their bikes'.;) Not sure how they got on....

The very good.:)
Central cabs in Dover charged us 90GBP to get to Gatwick to collect our car. Their normal rate, which was not escalated to take advantage and at least 20GBP cheaper than anyone else. Many thanks for a great service.

The excellent.:j
We expected to get stung for an extra 3-4 days Gatwick on site long stay parking, but we didn't have to pay a penny extra. A huge thanks for your integrity.

Overall - 15 hours from Munich station to Gatwick, which is reasonable.

I hope this benefits the 1000s of others in a similar situation. Good luck!

kiis102

JanCee wrote: »

Have asked this on another thread but no replies yet.

We are booked on an American Airlines flight from Manchester to Chicago tomorrow at 10.00am. On the AA website the flight is not showing as cancelled. Are we expected to turn up at the airport even though the news updates state that there will be no flights until 17.00? Am unable to get through to our tour operator.

No Flight leaving or Entering the UK tomorrow until at-least 7pm. It's 99% likely there will be no flights at all tomorrow. I wouldn't go to the airport as you will be wasting your own time and money . Check the AA website as-well as the Airport website soon as you wake up but I'm certain no one will be travelling tomorrow.

PhylPho

JanCee wrote: »

We are booked on an American Airlines flight from Manchester to Chicago tomorrow at 10.00am. On the AA website the flight is not showing as cancelled. Are we expected to turn up at the airport even though the news updates state that there will be no flights until 17.00?

It's 7pm UK time tomorrow. Not 5pm. It's also emphatically not an assurance that as from 7pm, UK air traffic of the kind you're referring to will be somehow magically free to depart. NATS is merely stating that existing restrictions will continue on until at least 7pm.

http://www.nats.co.uk/

On which basis, there's no prospect of a 10am ex MAN departure.

I'm not surprised about your experience: AA would seem to be bad enough, but Manchester Airport's incompetence is a downright disgrace:

http://www.manchesterairport.co.uk/

For a UK airport of this size to issue an "updated" service announcement two hours ago which can't even get the basic facts right defies belief.

You need to liaise with your tour operator / travel agent. . . in hope they'll (a) respond and (b) talk sense.

andrewmp

Easyjet's rebooking system doesn't let you change any leg that isn't yet cancelled. This therefore makes it a total waste of time...

I guess we'll be forced to just get a refund!

pretzelnut

andrewmp wrote: »

Easyjet's rebooking system doesn't let you change any leg that isn't yet cancelled. This therefore makes it a total waste of time...

I guess we'll be forced to just get a refund!

Reading other threads - you have to ring them and you should be able to change the retun date as well.

vinylmusic

Ringing airlines is a poor option at present. They are all inundated with calls and in my case had to wait for a message to play out before threading through to the right option. then wait forever

Most airlines will keep you up to date with information as things go on although you wont get answers to questions such as re-routing or who will pay for hotels, food etc

SnowWhiterThanWhite

vinylmusic wrote: »

I just found out that my flight has been cancelled making us well and truly stuck in Los Angeles.
An email from AF says
Dear Madam, dear Sir, We inform you that the flight 19/04 LOS ANGELES PARIS is cancelled. We thank you for your understanding.

I would be more understanding of they offered an alternative or tell me what to do next.
I cant help feeling from their short message that we have simply been dumped

Hi, Could you advise what time your flight was? We are currently booked to fly tomorrow from Las Vegas to Paris (then onto Heathrow) via Salt Lake City at 1.43 pm - flight still showing as 'on time' at moment.