FLIGHT DISRUPTIONS: Volcano ash from Iceland hits UK flight plans

vinylmusic

I had the misfortune of flying back from LA to Manchester via Paris with Air France. That was after being stranded for a week
It was the most uncomfortable flight I'd ever been on and really bad for leg room.
I Googled "Air France customer services" to find out where to make my claim for flight delay and through the results I stumbled upon some forums. It seems a lot of people are disgruntled with AF in one way or another.

I don't know if anyone had noticed but on 30th April (coincidence or what?) AF closed their UK customer support and now refer anyone to their Paris address and they wont give out a telephone number.
I tried pretending I was calling from France (I speak french) and got a french number out of their regular number in France but its one of those numbers that the French must pay extra to call like our 0870 ones and you can't dial them from UK.
I wish I could find a french equivalent to saynoto0870.co.uk.

Has anyone had any experience with them?
I don't hold much hope getting anywhere with AF. I'm sure

eslick

vinylmusic wrote: »

Has anyone had any experience with them?
I don't hold much hope getting anywhere with AF. I'm sure

KLM Air France wont talk to you over the phone, they arent really been helpful at all. We flew with KLM as they are the same company they were originally telling people that they wouldnt be paying out. However they have now sort of changed their stance and have made offers to many for the first night of the delays. They say they currently are looking into all claims but just sending out standard letters for the first night and not responding when people go back and decline the offer as they had been stranded longer.

You need to scan receipts and send them to them via this link.

https://www.af-klm.com/passage/ecomplaints/index.html?CallerID=AF&Language=en&CallerCountryCode=GB&returnurl=http://www.airfrance.co.uk/GB/en/local/avotreservice/relationclientele/clientele_reclamations.htm?menu=false&menu=false&frameHeight=1450


They are making offers around 140 euros for hotels and then 50 euros for each passenger, often rounding up the figures. However as mentioned this is for one night only.

We did have a facebook campaign opened to force KLM AF to make an official statement but it was closed by FB. There is a page however under the name Bob KLMton, which has details of how to claim for KLM and also details from other groups. AF doesnt have its own FB page but see facebook.com/klm for passengers updates.

oxters

BA have had my claim now for 3 weeks and still not a cheap.
I've e-mailed them by this link http://www.britishairways.com/travel/custrelform/public/en_gb?refevent=contact_us

so will await reply. Hopefully not too long although between the strike and the ash they'll be busy.

oxters

It will soon be 3 months since I submitted my claim. So far I have had an e-mail requesting a letter from my wife authorising me to settle on her behalf. We sent that and then 3 weeks later I e-mailed again asking when I would receive compensation and they said they were waiting for a letter so we sent another one and asked them to acknowledge receiving it this time - still nothing. I e-mailed a week ago asking for a progress report - still nothing!
Are they swamped or are they playing silly .........? Has anyone received a settlement? Time for some media attention?

debbiefletcher

oxters wrote: »

It will soon be 3 months since I submitted my claim. So far I have had an e-mail requesting a letter from my wife authorising me to settle on her behalf. We sent that and then 3 weeks later I e-mailed again asking when I would receive compensation and they said they were waiting for a letter so we sent another one and asked them to acknowledge receiving it this time - still nothing. I e-mailed a week ago asking for a progress report - still nothing!
Are they swamped or are they playing silly .........? Has anyone received a settlement? Time for some media attention?

I received almost all of my expenses from BA about 3 weeks ago. They covered all of our accommodation and most of our food expenses.

Good Luck
X

oxters

debbiefletcher wrote: »

I received almost all of my expenses from BA about 3 weeks ago. They covered all of our accommodation and most of our food expenses.

Good Luck
X

Thanks Debbie. You've given me hope. Can you say how long it took to settle your claim? We were delayed for 12 days in Australia which was a nice extension to our holiday even if unplanned. There were heaps of receipts from loads of places as we moved around and ate out a lot but we documented everything on a spreadsheet and kept the receipts numbered and in the correct order to make it easy to check - I thought it would be pretty much a quick check of the amounts and pay up but I am surprised at the delay.

debbiefletcher

oxters wrote: »

Thanks Debbie. You've given me hope. Can you say how long it took to settle your claim? We were delayed for 12 days in Australia which was a nice extension to our holiday even if unplanned. There were heaps of receipts from loads of places as we moved around and ate out a lot but we documented everything on a spreadsheet and kept the receipts numbered and in the correct order to make it easy to check - I thought it would be pretty much a quick check of the amounts and pay up but I am surprised at the delay.

We too had documented everything, the woman said that these were the cases they were dealing with first as they were the easiest to settle.
We had a phone call with an offer which we disputed but when they checked our receipts again, they upped the offer which covered almost all our expenses, they wouldn't pay for car hire or medical expenses.

Good luck, I hope it's settled soon.

oxters

debbiefletcher wrote: »

We too had documented everything, the woman said that these were the cases they were dealing with first as they were the easiest to settle.
We had a phone call with an offer which we disputed but when they checked our receipts again, they upped the offer which covered almost all our expenses, they wouldn't pay for car hire or medical expenses.

Good luck, I hope it's settled soon.

Thanks again Debbie
I realised that the car hire wouldn't be covered but I asked for the £50 for commuting they said we could claim against the car hire so fingers crossed for that. I was kind of hoping they would pay for our booze as well but maybe that's a no no?

Some days our claim was for less than the allowance and others a little more so I am hoping for a fair settlement, however the communication line seems to have broken down as I am getting no response to my queries.

debbiefletcher

We stayed in a Disney hotel, they were amazing when they found out that we were stranded and cut our hotel rates to residence rates, this bought us way below BA's hotel allowance so I was hoping that this would cover the days we went over on the cost of food but they refused. They said they would pay for a cab to the airport but Dismey had already sorted that for us. BA wouldn't pay for the cab this end, airport to home.
All in all though I'd say that they were pretty fair although I was a bit annoyed that they wouldn't cover my medication, I ran out while we were away, they did say that they would supply a letter for my insurance though but it wasn't a huge amount and I was just glad to get the rest of our money back.

Hope you hear from them soon.

oxters

debbiefletcher wrote: »

I received almost all of my expenses from BA about 3 weeks ago. They covered all of our accommodation and most of our food expenses.

Good Luck
X

Hello again Debbie (and anyone else watching this thread?)

We received a settlment last week. ( I complained to customer service about the delay and lo and behold we got a settlement)

We got £1300 approx which was only about £130 less than we claimed and I had expected the beers/wines to be deducted anyway, and also our first hotel night was about £70 above the ceiling. We did get the £50 for travel expenses against the car hire for our second "holiday on Ash Wednesday""
All in all I am extremely pleased with the settlement. Good old BA!

Thanks for your encouragement.

Oxter