Easyjet flight cancellation questions...

carled

Hi all. Before I go off with virtual loaded shotgun to Easyjet, can any of you that have been through similar happenings give me some pointers to what my options might be please?

Last Friday (9th) a group of 25 I'd organised (not all on same booking - in smaller groups of three and four) were due to fly out of East Mids to Cologne/Bonn. We checked in way ahead of time and when we went through security, we saw that the flight was already delayed by half an hour... "not a problem," we thought, "we can sit in the bar..." and so we did. The snow fell, it accumulated, the Prague Easyjet flight out was delayed, we sat and waited. Flight got delayed a bit more on the boards (another half hour or so) then as we got near to boarding time, we got the dreaded "please return to Easyjet desk" call on the tannoy.

I did this on behalf of the group to find that the flight was cancelled and the servisair rep was dishing out customer services telephone numbers, nothing else. At this point I was a bit concerned... we had a hotel booked in Cologne that night (full charge if cancelled within a week), an onward flight to Munich the next morning with Deutsche BA and a prebooked group train ticket to our resort in the alps from Munich. I went back through to the departure lounge and told the group, then spent an hour and a half on the phone to the Easyjet rep who frantically tried to find alternatives for us, even with other carriers. He could find nothing that would get us out there much before Monday night or Tuesday! He told me that they (Easyjet) may reschedule the flight for the morning, so I needed to call the airport first thing and find out... I found this unacceptable so went to speak to the Airport manager...

By this time, the snow had stopped, the runway was cleared and the EJ Prague flight had boarded and departed... The airport manager confirmed what I thought. The incoming Venice flight (due to take us to Cologne) had insufficient fuel to hold over EM airport whilst they cleared the runway, so detoured to Luton instead (EJ had to bus up the Venice passengers to East Mids). EJ then decided the flight wasn't "economically viable" to run, so pulled it.

We all went back to the house of a (fortunately) close living member of the group and hit the internet. We found flights with Thomsonfly out of Doncaster/Sheffield the next morning to Salzburg that left at the crack of dawn, so frantically booked tickets online for the group, fortunately managing to get all 25 passengers on the flight. This new one-way flight came to about £125 per head... We also needed to get taxis up to Doncaster/Sheffield the next morning at £20 per head. Once in Salzburg we also had to buy new train tickets to Munich, then on to our final destination at the cost of a further £150-ish for the group.

Now... I know that Easyjet claim no liability for "consequential loss" (ie hotels, on flights, etc...) in usual cases, but I'm wondering if there is some kind of clause I can trigger in this case as the cancellation happened at a point when we were sitting in departures and had already been delayed an hour. It may even have been possible to get onto another evening flight out from East Mids or a nearby airport if we had more notice...

So... can anyone please give me some tips on what we should pursue with EJ and what we should leave to our travel insurance? I'm pretty sure we're due the compensation payment (250 euros each? Or less?) Will they also be liable to pay us the £125 per head flight price (and the extra £45 we paid for ski carriage with them!) we arranged as an alternative with Thomsonfly from Doncaster/Sheffield? Will EJ refund the outward leg of our original EJ flight as well? Is it pointless trying to get them to pay for the cancelled hotel and the extra train ticket costs? Should we leave that for our travel insurance do you think?

any hints/tips gratefully received... they really screwed up our plans on this one...


*Just as an aside... First time I've ever flown with Thomsonfly and/or from Doncaster/Sheffield. Would like to say that a) Doncaster/Sheffield is a very nice little airport and b) Thomsonfly were by far the friendliest, most organised and efficient low cost carrier I've ever used. Top marks to them for doing great service on a budget.

jonnyjackov

Hi Carl,

Sorry to hear about your problems, and this might not help you too much, but I faced a similar (but not as serious) problem flying with easyjet from Berlin to Liverpool a couple of weeks ago.

After checking in early, boarding cards 1 and 2, we passed through security. After about 10 minutes the flight noticeboard details changed to cancelled on our flight. We tried to speak to someone, but as we were airside we could find no-one. Eventually after meeting up with another 6 people who had also checked in (boarding passes 3-8) we approached security but they would not let us back through to the easyjet desk, which is obviously before security.

All 8 of us were told to wait airside and an easyjet rep would be up to see us.

Trapped airside with nowhere to go we waited for over an hour, and despite repeated phonecalls by security on our behalf, the easyjet rep failed to show.

Eventually after well over a hour security themselves apologised and led us down and out through arrivals. Unfortunately while we were trapped airside, easyjet had been putting arriving passengers on other flights, so by the time we got to the easyjet desk all planes were full for the next two days.

Basically we were penalised for arriving early. After some negotiations at the easy jet desk they offered us one nights accomodation for that night, at the Holiday inn Hotel Berlin. We were not offered refreshment vouchers, or phone calls, both of which we were entitled to. We paid for the second night at the hotel ourselfves and on our return wrote to easyjet with details of the problems.

They agreed we were not treated correctly and agreed to reimburse us the cost of the second night at the hotel, (60 euros) and pay our refreshment bill from the hotel, (approx 60 euros for 2 breakfasts both days).

They informed me that we should have had refreshment vouchers, as well as two free telephone calls, but we were not entitled to the 250 compensation because our flight cancellation was out of their control, (ie weather).

As I say this probably isn't much help in your situation, but keep on at them and you should get something - best of luck.

Jon

StudentSaver_2

Generally easyJet take no responsibility for any costs incurred by you if you don't take up the alternative arrangements they offer. Although unacceptable, really, they offered you flights on the Monday or Tuesday, and you chose not to take them up on their offer. Therefore, according to the terms and conditions that you agreed to when you booked the flight, you didn't keep up your side of the deal by accepting their alternative arrangements, so you're at a loss. They should be refunding the full price of the cancelled flight for each person, though. Whether this will include the ski equipment charges, I don't know.

I had a similar experience in December 05. They cancelled my flight 3 days before Christmas and told me they couldn't get me home until the evening of Christmas Eve. I took the refund and got a flight from Flybe for the next morning.

carled

I was actively encouraged by the EJ CS rep I spoke to on the night of the cancellation to find an alternative flight with any other budget airline and keep the receipts for a refund, so I'm pretty confident we're ok on that, and the taxi cost to Doncaster.

I had a preliminary conversation with an Easyjet CS rep today. He said he was fairly certain that EJ in our circumstances would refund the difference between our extra flight cost and the one we originally paid for and the taxi to Doncaster, confirming what I thought. He then surprised me by saying that he was pretty sure they'd also refund the train ticket change cost abroad too. He wasn't sure about the hotel, but was fairly certain they'd refuse that one, leaving it to our insurance to cover it.

The "biggie" will be the EU compensation 250 Euros. Although the weather was responsible in some way, it was merely a factor rather than the cause. Put simply, if EJ had had enough fuel on that aircraft, it would have circled overhead for the half hour the airport was shut for then landed. We'd have been on our way with an hour's delay or thereabouts. As they managed to get the Prague flight out after a short-ish delay, they can hardly claim that the weather was the reason for the cancellation really... well, not by my logic they can't...

I'm pretty certain this will end in court action... :-)

carled

StudentSaver wrote:

Generally easyJet take no responsibility for any costs incurred by you if you don't take up the alternative arrangements they offer. Although unacceptable, really, they offered you flights on the Monday or Tuesday, and you chose not to take them up on their offer.

But if you look at the CAA regulations, exceeding the scheduled arrival time by even a few hours on short-haul is enough to trigger the breach in regulation unless it was caused by "exceptional circumstances" which the airline has to prove.

"It was too dangerous to land at East Mids". Yep, until the runway was cleared, you're right. Didn't have enough fuel to stay up there and wait? Oh dear, bit of a planning !!!!-up then, wasn't it...? Hardly "exceptional circumstances" which couldn't be avoided even if all reasonable steps had been taken. As a delay in landing is as common as muck, surely having enough fuel to hold for half an hour should be part of their planning?

I think we're home dry on this one. A bit of arguing, for sure, but they've shot themselves in the foot by getting their Prague flight off the ground whilst I was speaking to the CS rep on the Friday night.

mystic_trev

carled wrote:

As a delay in landing is as common as muck, surely having enough fuel to hold for half an hour should be part of their planning?

They would have had more than half an hours fuel left as it's a CAA regulation i.e. Aircraft (unless due to an emergency proceedure) have to land with at least 30 mins of fuel left. It would seem that the Captain took the action to divert and the final decision is left to him. Because of this I doubt wether you'll have any chance on the issue of compensation, but good luck anyway!

carled

mystic_trev wrote:

They would have had more than half an hours fuel left as it's a CAA regulation i.e. Aircraft (unless due to an emergency proceedure) have to land with at least 30 mins of fuel left. It would seem that the Captain took the action to divert and the final decision is left to him. Because of this I doubt wether you'll have any chance on the issue of compensation, but good luck anyway!

I can't see that one washing... If EJ could get away with "oh, the captain decided..." then it would make an utter mockery of the EU charge. They could do that every single time they had a problem and never pay compensation. Reference the Dublin case last year (March-ish) when EJ were forced to pay compensation EVEN WHEN the direct cause was high winds causing the flight to be cancelled...

I cannot see them having a leg to stand on here. They got a flight out of the airort, therefore they cannot claim the conditions made it unsafe to use the airport. Add in to this the fact that, had they been on time that night, they'd have landed before the worst of the snow hit anyway!

tillymint

On 1st Feb Hubby and myself went to Paris for a few days to celebrate his Birthday. Outbound flight was on time, no problems.
Got to CDG Airport on Sunday at 8.30am for 10.30am flight to Liverpool to find flight had been CANCELLED, we believe due to fog at Liverpool. Queued at Customer Services desk and eventually got told one of us could fly at 10.30pm and the other on standby, needless to say we declined this. The could offer us nothing to anywhere in the UK at all on the Sunday. There was no offer of accommodation or telephone calls to us. Eventually we went to BA desk in another terminal, booked flights to Manchester at a cost of £280 and then had to get a taxi to Liverpool to collect our car, another £45. Rung Easyjet that evening and they credited me with the cost of the cancelled flight, told me to send in copies of receipts to CS and they would look at refunding me the £325. Did that and to my amazement and delight got a full refund (less my original return flight cost). Half expected a weather excuse but no problems at all. Just wonderring now if can claim compensation as well!!! Anyone any idea???