bmibaby flight cancellations

jimcardiff

read with interest the problems with bmibaby. Myself and six others had our return flight from edinburgh to cardiff (begining august) cancelled an hour before departure, no prior notice, and told "sorry", our next flight is wednesday .."bye!" - we had to pay for a flight with flybe to birmingham at last minute at high price, and get picked up by car to get back to cardiff. Wrote letter, had no reply for 55 days, sent a "going to court " letter which crossed over with their reply, which is a standard " technical fault due to extraordinary circumstances " letter and hence will just pay for the return flight part , - no compensation etc. Based on discussions on this and other sites, since they have to prove the that such a technical fault meets the EU legislation criteria, that's it worth going to the small claims court - what do others think ?

jimcardiff

thanks cityboy for info - very useful, not sure whether to claim as a joint county court claim or send in seperate claims - a joint one may cause bmibaby to consider defending one claim worth it (if possible), while seperate claims would be more difficult for them to justify - any thoughts ?

richardw

Separate claims may have different Judges.

jimcardiff

Finally sent our small claims court claim on-line - Bmbibay have 14 days to reply - we'll see what happens. The crunch will be if they can find some way of getting the "extraordinary circumstances" to stick.

Alan_Bowen

Airline websites suggest BMIBaby have had serious technical issues with their aging fleets this summer There were a lot of delays and cancellations so you may find they give in reasonably quickly

jimcardiff

Bmibaby sent letter direct, not acknowledging court claim, agreeing to reimburse the cost of the alternative flights but stating that since the fight was cancelled due to an "Aileron fault" - and saying "Technical problems such as these fall under the category of unexpected flight safety shortcomings and is therefore classed as an extraordinary circumstance"! -hence they won't pay the EU compensation .... i think i will ask them for evidence that such a fault can be classed as an extraordinary circumstance since fixing Aileron's must be deemed normal maintenance issues ...any comments ?

jimcardiff

Talked to Northampton County Court customer services today (money claim online court) - if I understand the situation re BMIBABY claim correctly :
1. BMI baby issued acknowledgement of service but DIDN'T offer a defence within the required period of time
2. Hence judgement has been issued, 24th jan
3. Using the on-line system, I have only one option if i want to apply for a warrant to obtain payment. This requires a £ 100 fee and a bailiff will then be sent to the Bmibaby offices to A) attempt to get payment If payment not forthcoming, to attempt to retrieve goods to the value of the outstanding claim. (!)
4. As an alternative, i can apply for the local court in Derby to attempt to obtain the monies - this requires form filling and not quite sure on procedure - i have to read up about it on their website etc.
Does all this make sense and anybody recommend the best way forward,

Voyager2002

This development sounds fascinating. Cityboy, I hope that an appropriate moment you will be able to tell us the gist of the advice you gave by PM. I am sure we would all be interested in knowing whether an airline can get away with ignoring the courts.

jimcardiff

Hi Guys,
i can confirm that as usual Cityboy was spot one, and Bmibaby have now paid up in full including fee - was about to press the warrant button to send the baliffs round but recieved the cheque (and it has cleared!) before i could do it - so in the end the online money claim site worked great
Jim