Flight change and prepaid hotels

richardw

jpsartre wrote: »

Hey, like everyone else I'm merely stating how I see things. I never pretended otherwise. I don't think I disagree with Centipede over how the regulations *ought* to be interpreted but unfortunately our opinion doesn't carry much weight if the airline insists otherwise.

Your posts may appear to some to be good advice, I'm just suggesting to others to take care before acting on them.

jpsartre

Fair enough though my only advice in this thread was to avoid 3rd party bookers. As far as the EU regulations go, I simply pointed out that they are unclear when it comes to schedule changes (which they are).

jpsartre

Centipede100 wrote: »

you have to examine the tendency of the ECJ to interpret their Regulations widely and with considerable regard to the standpoint of passengers with a view to fulfilling the aims of the Recitals to the Reg.

Absolutely and I am confident that a court would look favourably on someone arguing that a, say, 12 hour schedule change should be treated as a cancelation. At least, I can see no good reason why it shouldn't, since the negative effects are similar to those passengers experience in cases of delays and cancelations. All the more frustrating that it is isn't made explicit in the regulations. It would have been so simple to add a paragraph to the effect of "if a flight is rescheduled more than X hours and the passenger is notified later than Y days prior to the original departure, then article so-and-so applies".

jpsartre

Centipede100 wrote: »

If airlines could continually re-schedule flights and get away with not paying compensation why would they ever describe a flight as cancelled and have to pay compensation?

A rescheduled flight has to actually operate. So you cannot just take a flight out of operation and claim it's been rescheduled. That much is clear from the definition of a cancelation.

I'm repeating myself but again, I do not disagree with you that article 5 ought to apply to schedule changes, my point is that it isn't sufficiently clear in the regulations that they do. The words "schedule change" are simply not mentioned. This gives the airlines an unfortunate "out" as far as their obligations with respect to schedule changes. This is reflected in airline policies. EasyJet, for instance, will not offer a refund in cases of schedule changes (only a credit for future use). Other airlines have different rules though they typically have a self-imposed threshold on when a refund is offered. With Ryanair it's three hours. BA states that a refund is offered in cases of significant schedule changes, not specifying what they count as significant. With Thomas Cook I believe it's in cases of changes of more than 12 hours.