'Is it fair for Ryanair to pay compensation?' poll discussion

stevemcol

Any airline has a unique repsonsibility to its customers. By placing a member of the public '000s of miles from home there is a duty of care to return that person to his home country at the agreed time. If circumstances within or outside of the airline's control contrive to prevent that repatriation then the airline must either find another way of achieveing it or cover the individual's costs.
If the airline feels it should insure itself against such eventualities (as indeed it should) then that's perfectly reasonable; just pass that cost on to the passengers as a ticket surcharge. That would negate the cheap ticket, no rights argument.

It just isn't fair to expect members of the public, some of whom who may be on low incomes, tight bugets etc, to shell out many hundreds of pounds for accomodation & food.

Reasonable daily caps should of course be set.

pure_dead_dopey

At the moment I think EU law makes the airlines liable, end of argument. Now I understand why they are screaming but the point remains they were unable to fufil their contract. I think what should happen now is that it all has to be looked at, you buy a ticket, you expect it to do what it says, however this volcano might do this all again next month and who is going to pay then?
so insurance has to be able to cover this eventuality, I think its going to mean it costs more but that is how life is, increased risk, increased price.
then if you want to fly abroad for any reason, you have to weigh all the financial implications.
No different than at the moment really, you fly just now knowing that airlines are responsible, if they want to change the rules then they have to negotiate that with the insurance companies.
What I will not do is pay as a taxpayer, you make your own decisions, to fly etc, I am certainly very much against my taxes going to keep people in hotels for 10 days while airlines protect their profits.

disneyangel_2

I was stuck in the chaos whilst on a family holiday in Salou with my husband and 7 year old daughter.

Whilst I have some sympathy for Ryanair having to pay out so much costs compared to their flight prices I think you should also consider the following in regard to how they have handled this situation

Initailly as we'd checked on online (as Ryanair penalise you heavily for not doing so )we could only change our flight by going through a call centre -On the first night this recommended you call another £1 a minute number (and that's the UK cost ). The next day this was relaxed and were allowed to change bookings only once on their website and although our flight was one of the first cancelled could only get booked onto a flight 10 days later !!!! and we were not able to amend this using the webste without further charges and our £40 flights are now selling for £189 !!!and that's the Ryanair basic price without all the added extras you have to pay with Ryanair

People who were delayed later were able to get onto earlier return flights.

We could never get through to the call centre either from Spain or by friends ringing from the UK

You cannot cancel flights with Ryanair unless they cancel it so any passengers who did leave prior to their new flight and take other transport home like us cannot free those seats up for others now.

Michael O'Leary's announcement that they were not going to follow the EU regulation was the final thing that influenced our decision to leave by other means and after spending 27 hours and well over £750 getting home and finding out he'd changed his mind I was more than a little upset ! It was very poor timing in the circumstances and I feel only done for publicity. We'd seen an earlier interview when he explained why he was unhappy but said his priority was to get people home and he'd challenge the interpretation of the guideline ,in the exceptional circumstances later with the EU. Two days later when many people were still stuck abroad was not IMHO an appropriate time.

I like the idea of having a fund that every passenger pays a set amount into per flight that can be used in this kind of situation as I do think that this is a big ask of the airlines given the unprecendented (most used word to describe the event we heard !!!) situation.

It also makes we wonder what travel insurance is for .We can only claim £65 from ours :eek:

We also found the situation chaotic in Spain with regard to the use of Madrid and I think both the Spanish and British Govts have to take some responsibity for creating that.

I do hope lessons are learned as there is still a chance it's big brother can go off .

simongregson

I agree with them following the EU regulations. All the airlines knew they existed and also that they would have to cough up in the case of an event such as this. Airlines have the capacity to strand people a lot more effectively than other modes of transport. They should have priced the cost into the ticket, or covered themselves with insurance.

It is not fair to passengers for them to complain after the event, if I knew that the airline would not pay up I might be inclined to buy travel insurance to cover the situation. As I knew that I was covered under EU regulations, I bought a basic policy for medical cover.

Incidently, I'm sure that most ryanair and other budget airline passengers were travelling on quite expensive tickets, being as it was the last week of the easter holidays!

Personally I would never fly Ryanair again at any price after MoL's comments on the news, the sheer cheek of the man complaining about having to follow the letter of the rules when he makes customers cough up such extortionate fees and uses the excuse that they could have avoided them if they followed the small print!

steve1500

As another person / family that was stuck in Spain. Ryan Air put 2 fingers up to the law and us as their customers. Customer Service and RyanAir is an Oxymoron.They knew about it & obviously took a calculated business risk not to factor it into their pricing models - that is their problem. They have no option but to cough up. They probably only changed their minds because thay could be liable of a fine of upto £5000 per passenger - Bet that made O'leary wake up

lala8960

I have to agree with Ryanair to be honest. Their flights are very reasonable and the service onboard is fab. Thanks to the prices I am able to visit Tenerife some 3 times yearly now.

I do not think they can be held responsible for the ash episode we have just had, and pay for peoples food and accomodation. They were following safety rules for that situation and not flying. To be honest if they had said we are going to risk it and fly anyway, I certainly would not have been happy to board.

Their flight are so reasonable which we all like. If they are made to pay for things like this, they will cease to be one of the best cheapest flights airlines. We already have too many top price airlines.

Icanandwillsavemoney

Jnelhams wrote: »

I wonder what Ryan Air would say if the passenger failed to pay for a breach of contract? You can't demand all those booking & baggage fees and then squeal when you have to pay us for a law you were aware of.

The passengers can't claim for 5 star hotels, which is fair, and it is an event unlikely to happen again for many years, but your fees won't go away!

I would not and do not fly Ryan Air, I would rather support our own airlines.

What would be interesting to know is which companies behaved the best in this instance, so that we can all use that insurer or airline in future.

I was in Spain visiting my Mum on a Thomson's flight only deal for £100 return including checked in baggage.

This is what Thomson's did for me...

Transfer by taxi from airport to a half board hotel - I covered cost of lunch and all drinks
Transfer by coach - this was going to be to my local airport in the North East but ended up with another hotel stay (full board - I covered cost of drinks, and then the cruise ship (full board including soft drinks and tea/coffee) to Southampton.

They have my loyalty from here on in. I met many people along my 8 days delay in getting home and heard so many horror stories that really don't bear thinking about.

They looked after me as though I had spent £1000 on a all inclusive package and I will never forget the level of customer service I received either - it really was top notch from turning up at the airport for my return flight (cancelled) to the final coach journey from Southampton to Newcastle airport (I was originally booked to return to Manchester airport and they even accomodated this amendment too).

Luscious_Lola

I am at the moment still trying to get money from the villa company. Was refunded flights by Thomas Cook and a credit note for parking which I will use in the future. As for the villa, well been told by partner of the company that World Pay are the ones to ask the money from but they differ and are now investigating this claim. I believe that insurance companies are the ones who always benefit and we are the ones fighting and trying to recoup our hard earned cash..not a happy bunny:mad:

elvis86 wrote: »

Personally I can see his point. You pay RyanAir peanuts (relatively) to get you from point A to point B, if your flight is delayed they should of course be obliged to get you to your destination as soon as possible, and perhaps provide food vouchers etc for a few hours delay in an airport.

But I think that in cases like this, it is insurers who should be footing the bill. They are the real villains of the piece. The travel insurance business should be more heavily regulated with standard, consistent levels of cover, and there should be legislation which means that they HAVE to pay up in situations like this. What else is travel insurance for if not for a situation like this?

The entire insurance business is corrupt IMO. Car insurance for example, we are required BY LAW to take a policy, but the insurers seem to have very few legal obligations to their customers! For example, if you make a claim for something which was not your fault, you should be legally protected against a hike in your premium. Also, there should be an official valuation scheme that insurers have to adhere to when your car is stolen/written off.

Surely the whole point of having insurance is to ensure that you are not stung when the worst happens?!

rcherryuk

It looks like many have forgotten why the European Commission introduced this Directive. For many years many of the budget airlines,led by Ryanair would blame 'Force Majeure' or 'Act of God' whenever they cancelled a flight,leaving many stranded far from home & unable to do anything other than fly on another carrier.

These Acts of God often coincided with the flight in question only having a few 'fly for a penny' type ticket holders checked in & waiting!

O'Leary alway intended to pay, but the media gave him more free publicity.

My stranded colleagues were told by RA customer services "take us to court if you want your money"!!

Rob

JEWELS51

I have just returned from Portugal today holiday was from 12th April till 19th April 1st flight given by Ryanair was today 2nd of May I have spent an extra 13 days in Portugal thanks to Mr O'Learys company with my husband and 3 children the only other flight was available was wed 28th of April wher they wanted me to pay an extra £934 iI certainly was not busing, taxing and ferrying with 5 cases + hand luggage and 3 kids so who should pay the folks of Iceland lol.