Missed prepaid taxi due to flight delay

Centipede100

shaun_from_Africa wrote: »

But that case is totally different to the OP's and does not compare in any way.

That ruling was to do with arrival delays which were caused by flight cancellations and the passengers being rerouted or placed on later departing flights, hence their original arrival time being changed.

Quote:
passengers who are re-routed under Article 5(1)(c)(iii) of Regulation No 261/2004 are afforded the right to compensation laid down in Article 7 of the regulation where the carrier fails to re-route them on a flight which departs no more than one hour before the scheduled time of departure and reaches their final destination less than two hours after the scheduled time of arrival. Those passengers thus acquire a right to compensation when they suffer a loss of time equal to or in excess of three hours in relation to the duration originally planned by the air carrier.

There is also the "extrodinary circumstances" exemption.
Whilst this doesn't always apply, one time that it does is if the delay or cancellation was caused by something which:
"their nature or origin, are not inherent in the normal exercise of the activity of the air carrier concerned and are beyond its actual control."
and an unscheduled landing at a differerent airport to fix a techinical problem is certainly not a normal activity of the airline.

The ruling may have quite a lot to do with the OP if he was delayed by 3 hours or more in arriving at their originally scheduled destination.

The ruling, if you care to read it is to do with delays NOT cancellations!

And your selective quote has been taken completely out of context from the rest of the judgement which renders it pretty meaningless in this instance.

I agree that the airline may be able to defend itself if it can satisfy a competent court that 'extraordinary circumstances' were to blame for the delay, but the same judgement rules out technical issues as you have correctly re-stated above.

What you have apparently also stated is that, as judge in this case, an unscheduled landing at a different airport to fix a technical issue is not a normal activity of an airline. Quite funny if it wasn't so serious.

You might like to consult the pprune forum where this type of issue appears quite normal for airlines. If it was not inherent in operating an airline, how else do you think airlines manage to fix problems occurring during flights other than diversion to alternative airfields? Pancake in the mountains/desert/land in the sea??

Hintza

Is this an alter ego:- rockyraccoon89

Just strange that we have two Rockyraccoons in the same month. The other one hasn't been to the other thread either.

System

Centipede100 wrote: »

You might like to consult the pprune forum where this type of issue appears quite normal for airlines. If it was not inherent in operating an airline, how else do you think airlines manage to fix problems occurring during flights other than diversion to alternative airfields? Pancake in the mountains/desert/land in the sea??

Read the OP. it wasn't an emergency diversion as you are implying. It was a diversion because the airline did not have engineering staff at the destination airfiled. The diversion was done to prevent the aircrafty being stranded at the original destination until an engineering crew could get to it.

The (sensible) plan was to get it to a fully stocked maintenance point rather than somewhere where everything must be brought in with the consequent delays and cancellation of further flights.

A 3 hour diversion prevented the loss of an aircraft for 24+ hours.

Centipede100

!!!!!! wrote: »

Read the OP. it wasn't an emergency diversion as you are implying. It was a diversion because the airline did not have engineering staff at the destination airfiled. The diversion was done to prevent the aircrafty being stranded at the original destination until an engineering crew could get to it.

The (sensible) plan was to get it to a fully stocked maintenance point rather than somewhere where everything must be brought in with the consequent delays and cancellation of further flights.

A 3 hour diversion prevented the loss of an aircraft for 24+ hours.

I wasn't implying it was an emergency diversion, rather giving an example of typical airline operations and pointing out to the previous poster that it was clearly an issue inherent in operating an airline and therefore not likely to come under the defence of extraordinary circumstances.

Maybe it did prevent the loss from service for 24+ hours. That doesn't prevent the delay inconveniencing the passengers on the flight as we have read, for which a remedy exists in law.

shaun_from_Africa

I wasn't implying it was an emergency diversion, rather giving an example of typical airline operations and pointing out to the previous poster that it was clearly an issue inherent in operating an airline and therefore not likely to come under the defence of extraordinary circumstances

I know that this happens with airlines and with me being a licenced aircraft engineer (well, a helicopter engineer but I do mix with a lot of fixed wing people) I do know a bit about aircraft movements, but what I stated was that an unscheduled landing (either for emergency or logistical reasons) would probably be excluded because although such things do happen, they are not part of normal operations, and it is due to it not be an inherent part of flight ops that may qualify it as an extraordinary circumstance.

And to follow on from your earlier post, I know all about pprune, having been an active member on there for many years.

It's definately worth the OP contacting the airline and asking if they would consider making a payment for the taxi and if they get the right person on the day, they may well get this.

Centipede100

shaun_from_Africa wrote: »

I know that this happens with airlines and with me being a licenced aircraft engineer (well, a helicopter engineer but I do mix with a lot of fixed wing people) I do know a bit about aircraft movements, but what I stated was that an unscheduled landing (either for emergency or logistical reasons) would probably be excluded because although such things do happen, they are not part of normal operations, and it is due to it not be an inherent part of flight ops that may qualify it as an extraordinary circumstance.

And to follow on from your earlier post, I know all about pprune, having been an active member on there for many years.

It's definately worth the OP contacting the airline and asking if they would consider making a payment for the taxi and if they get the right person on the day, they may well get this.

Shaun

I'm not questioning your engineering expertise, and as you freely admit, such things do happen. The fact that these things do happen means they are unlikely to qualify as extraordinary circumstances as defined:

Article 5(3) of Regulation No 261/2004 must be interpreted as meaning that a technical problem in an aircraft which leads to the cancellation or delay of a flight is not covered by the concept of ‘extraordinary circumstances’ within the meaning of that provision, unless that problem stems from events which, by their nature or origin, are not inherent in the normal exercise of the activity of the air carrier concerned and are beyond its actual control

It would be useful for the OP to return to clarify a number of issues in any case as we have no knowledge of flight number or date which makes further advice somewhat speculative.

arcon5

Intasun32 wrote: »

@Arcon,

As I have said I can see this from both sides.

Nothing to have stopped the op calling the taxi company to advise of the delay and re-booking when the flight was ready to take off. Every taxi driver has/should have a mobile phone, (though I am sure that someone will disagree with that), any decent taxi company would not/should not charge to cancel and rebook under these circumstance. They would be only too happy to have been informed of the situation.

If they did make a charge then it should not be for the full amount as the fare has not been completed but if that is the policy of this taxi company then the op should use a different company or driver. Also a call to the local licensing authorities may help the op.

If you are talking about re-scheduling in general then yes, most would. In fact most will check flights before sending the job to a driver.

However in ops situation whereby the driver was already initiated I don't see why the correct fare for work done (despite no pickup) should not be paid.... the driver is either likely to be a) working on a commission basis so will want paying for the time and the owner of the vehicle want their cut for fuel & costs or b) an owner driver in which case wants paying for time + costs. I can't see any decent taxi company allowing their driver to take big hits like this through no fault of their own.

How will a call to the licensing authority help? In fact how is it in any way relevant or appropriate to get them involved? The driver has done nothing wrong and and the operator equally have done nothing wrong.
The fare charged should be approriate to the work undertaken agreed. For example, if op was going from EMA to Doncaster and the taxi was Doncaster based... op should pay the full fare as despite op not being present the driver was still travelled the same distance and taken the same amount of time had op been collected... if the driver is based near the airport then travelling outwards to Doncaster, op should pay a fare equivalent to their base to EMA + waiting time.

A different example, if I order & pay for a pizza online and change my mind on arriving at the store... should I be entitled to a refund if I refuse to take receipt of the food? No

SirRockyRaccoon

Hi, thanks everyone for your replies.

baza52 wrote: »

check your travel insurance.

&

paddyrg wrote: »

Did you get good insurance? If so, this is the time to use it. If you bought cheap insurance with a high excess, it's time to learn from experience, I'm afraid.

Unfortunately, the policy excess is more than the taxi fare.

arcon5 wrote: »

They probably did, but as op said it only happened 20 minute before landing. I suspect the driver would have pretty much been there at this point

&

!!!!!! wrote: »

As the aircraft was in flight then the use of a mobile phone is a No No. The first chance to contact the taxi company would have been when the A/C landed at Gatwick.

This is what the OP did and was informed that the taxi was already at the airport.

Correct! As soon as I was allowed to use my phone (when aircraft landed at Gatwick) I contacted the taxi company which informed me the taxi was already there waiting for me.

bris wrote: »

Airlines never accept liability for third party losses due to delay, this is why you pay insurance. They only cover situations where the delay causes you to miss a connecting flight, train, coach etc that was part of the original booking.

My insurance covers it but unfortunately the excess is higher

Hintza wrote: »

Is this an alter ego:- rockyraccoon89
Just strange that we have two Rockyraccoons in the same month. The other one hasn't been to the other thread either.

Not the same, sorry! Not me!

!!!!!! wrote: »

Read the OP. it wasn't an emergency diversion as you are implying. It was a diversion because the airline did not have engineering staff at the destination airfiled. The diversion was done to prevent the aircrafty being stranded at the original destination until an engineering crew could get to it.

The (sensible) plan was to get it to a fully stocked maintenance point rather than somewhere where everything must be brought in with the consequent delays and cancellation of further flights.

A 3 hour diversion prevented the loss of an aircraft for 24+ hours.

Absolutely! That is why they diverted the flight so they could continue further flights with the same aircraft and without any cancellations.

shaun_from_Africa wrote: »

...

It's definately worth the OP contacting the airline and asking if they would consider making a payment for the taxi and if they get the right person on the day, they may well get this.

I'm going to try that. I asked for the taxi company to write me a letter explained what happened (basically, their side of the story). They agreed. So I'm going to forward the letter to the airline and see what happens.

Lesson learned! I'll never pay in advance again, just in case!

If I hear anything back from the airline or whatever the outcome is, I'll come back here to let you all know. Thanks again!

arcon5

SirRockyRaccoon wrote: »

Lesson learned! I'll never pay in advance again, just in case! !

Even had you not paid in advance, you could still find yourself facing a bill for the service made available to you.

Unfortunately this situation cannot have been foreseen and nobody is at fault.

Annabee

I was quite interested to read this thread, as I always blithely assumed that with an airport taxi that they would wait for you if the flight was delayed. I know they usually check flight arrivals etc before they set out, but this sort of incident must be very common in their line of work, and I thought they built this into their costs.

30 minutes certainly doesn't seem very long to wait.