lapland trip ruined - am I entitled to compensation?

Ponkle22

ah thanks for clarifying.

nft66

Libby
As a fellow very frustrated passenger of the lapland trip of the 18th/19th Dec I share your comments.
Having seen the Gatwick Easyjet only closure of the 18th I travelled to Luton as Easyjets web page.
I had already paid to park at Gatwick!!! The experience of the 18th was utterly deplorable and as advised
by Easyjet as luckily for me I had transport at Luton I did ultimately check my family in at the Hilton North.
I did experience briefly the conference room made available and sympathise that no transfers where made
available to local hotels. My current attempts to obtain reimbursement for these costs from Easyjet are being
blocked as being a chartered flight I have no direct Easyjet booking reference. I also feel we may be able to
obtain compensation via the denied boarding regulations as overfueling is not covered by exceptional circumstances
they are using the smoke screen of the snow and weather conditions!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Westin

The overfueling could actually be down to the weather as well.

I'm sure if any qualified pilots are on MSE they can explain this better but here goes in simple terms;

All aircraft will have weight and balance calculations made before departure by the flight deck and dispatcher. They will fuel according to the weight (passengers/cargo) and distance to fly - and have a maximum weight for take-off from the airport. It is quite possible this was all calculated according to the booked load on the flight and the full runway length at LTN. If for any reason (snow, ice, general poor weather) the full runway length was not available then the maximum aircraft weight would need to be reduced. This can be done by removing cargo (1st choice), removing some baggage (2nd choice but often what happens), removing some passengers (expensive as denied bparding compensation kicks in), or either not taking a full fuel load (divert mid flight to refuel = time, cost and finding another available airfield not snowed in), or removing fuel already in the tanks.

Also, the fueling is very unlikely to have been done hours before the flight is scheduled to depart. More likely within an hour of the scheduled departure time.

My money would be on the aircraft being correctly fuelled, then the weight/balance needed to be corrected and fuel removed to allow for the flight to operate safely. With all the reactionary weather delays and crewing issues this time spent on removing the fuel probably pushed to operating crew to run out of flying hours and no replacement crews being available (again down to weather) - resulting in the overnight delay.

stoneman

To me people seem to be missing the main point that is totally unacceptable. Bedding passengers down on the floor of a conference room is not in any way shape or form acceptable behaviour. They had a duty to put you all up in hotels, clear cut and simple. Penny pinching on a scale of this magnitude when children are involved is grotesque. I would follow through with the complaint on that point alone. Makes me glad that I don't fly with LCC's

Westin

They had a duty to put you all up in hotels, clear cut and simple.

Yes - you're right, BUT, what happens when it snows, flights are cancelled and thousands of passengers are looking for a bed for the night? That's right the hotels fill up.

Plus getting those passengers to hotels (if you can find a room) is often going to be a problem. Again coaches will be in very high demand and often the snow will make roads difficult to drive in.

In a perfect world....

libbyc3

hi nft66 - I did wonder if i would bump into any of us 585 survivors on here!!!

whilst i understand the part about the root cause of the whole situation was the weather, my real complaint is the way we were treated at the airport. we kept being told that we would get hotels, then we were shown to the conference room - by the time we realised that we had been completely abandoned the my kids had fallen asleep on the floor and the couple of hotels we i phoned were full - yes with hindsight i would have tried to make arrangements as soon as the flight was cancelled, but at the time i believed what i was told.
£6 voucher for food for 32 hours?!?!?
espirit is not by far the cheapest company to travel to lapland with and yet they use a budget airline - yes things happen (like snow), but when it did go wrong espirit were nowhere to be found - a phone call to say dont worry it will be fine when you get there!
believe me, a conference room with no heating or anything to sleep under is a terrible start to what is probably one of the most expensive pound per hour holidays.
we did consider going home and getting a refund, but after waiting until we got to gatwick on the morning of the 18th that we were going to lapland to see the real santa the thought of telling them we weren't was too hard ( and apart from that our car was at gatwick!)
we also lost a third of our holiday due to the late take off on the 19th, so had no time to do the extras like just wander around the village and go tobogganing. it made the 2 night stay very rushed

nft66

Taking the issue of overfuelling its a bit more complex,

The flight was fueled correctly for the flight to collect stranded passengers in Ivalo Finland.

For reasons unknown (the flight had been rescheduled the day before ie ahead of the snow chaos) the fuel load added was based on an empty outbound passenger load.

The additional fuel load of 6 tonnes as advised by ramp staff could not be removed as Luton has no such facilities.

As regards you get what you pay for, the once in a lifetime package to lapland made no mention of Easyjet and referred to charter flight by supplier Ski Esprit in hindsight perhaps the flight code EZY did give the game away!!

So to confuse the overfueling with the weather events that followed is not correct,

nft66

Libby,

have you had the Esprit corporate response letter. Nice touch not. Like you had kept it a secret for months
and told the kids when in the check in queue. The day tested my resolve to the limit.Did consider abandoning the trip but the kids like yours where by now very very expectant!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Now no hotel costs being refunded as the computer at Easyjet says "NO".

A once in a lifetime trip 3 days/2nights reduced to little more than a long day trip. Zero time on day one we arrived to our hotel to the food on the table and the kids falling asleep.Great day meeting the big man then next day back to Gatwick for a coach trip to Luton to collect my car!!! I will be writing to Esprit as our service provider.

zzzLazyDaisy

I flew out of Gatwick at 9pm on 18th December. We were delayed by 3 hours and I think we were one of the last flights out before the airport closed. But a number of other airlines did get get their flights away . However Easyjet cancelled all their flights to everywhere.

They also left passengers queued up at the check-in desk with no reps and no information, long after the flight should have been called to the gate. When I got through to the departure lounge, there were announcements that the airport was unable to give any information to easyjet passengers, because there was no-one available from the airline.

Yes they were unusual circumstances, but that sort of shoddy treatment is, in my view, unacceptable.

GH

libbyc3 wrote: »

on a once in a lifetime trip

What exactly does this mean? Are you not going to live long enough to do it again? Or are you just trying to add to the drama?