Monarch delays & Compensations. Listed flights denied in O.P.

The_Wingco

Any comments from M'Learned Friends on here (you know who you are!) on the related article in today's Money Mail? It specifically refers to the guidelines for ECs emanating from the NEB 'guidance' of 12 April 2013, and the fact that airlines - as I have noted on here previously - have been given a get-out when it comes to arguing their case in court against claimants who have no chance of knowing the full circumstances surrounding a delay.
For example, it reports: 'If an engine part fails before it is due to be replaced, the airline doesn't have to pay up.' I can just imagine the fun that Monarch are going to have with this one in Court. And: 'It allows an airline off the hook if it encounters a technical defect immediately prior to departure'. What, even if it is down to shoddy routine servicing?
Not that I'm pessimistic about my own pending claim (flight aborted on departure from stand, replacement part flown in from elsewhere was found to be useless, necessitating another part being flown in from still another airport, total delay 10 hours) - it's just that certain aspects of the original 261/2001 judgement seem to be being diluted to the point where, as the Mail puts it, 'many of the ECs are too vague'.:(
Need a bit of moral support (as I suspect to many others). Keep up the good work.

Vauban

I can't claim to be much Learned, but I wasn't much impressed with the article. Still, if the airlines start citing the Daily Mail in their defence, they really will be in trouble ...

dantopofsnowdon

:T

Re: Flight MON1829 CORFU-MANCHESTER 4TH JUNE 2012.
As I am not a regular forum contributor, I'm unsure about which thread to share my good news so bear with me if this isn't it. Today, I received compensation cheques from Monarch for a claim they previously rejected on the grounds of a technical fault being an `exceptional circumstance`. I wrote to them again at the beginning of August, following the publication of guidelines issued by European regulators, asking them to review my case. (I suspected the technical fault - fuel filter - should have been dealt with as part of routine maintenance). I sent 3 letters over a period of 12 months and eventually got nearly £700 in compensation, so people, don't give up. Here's hoping this flies in the face of the Daily Mail article!:j

JPears

The_Wingco wrote: »

Any comments from M'Learned Friends on here (you know who you are!) on the related article in today's Money Mail? It specifically refers to the guidelines for ECs emanating from the NEB 'guidance' of 12 April 2013, and the fact that airlines - as I have noted on here previously - have been given a get-out when it comes to arguing their case in court against claimants who have no chance of knowing the full circumstances surrounding a delay.
For example, it reports: 'If an engine part fails before it is due to be replaced, the airline doesn't have to pay up.' I can just imagine the fun that Monarch are going to have with this one in Court. And: 'It allows an airline off the hook if it encounters a technical defect immediately prior to departure'. What, even if it is down to shoddy routine servicing?
Not that I'm pessimistic about my own pending claim (flight aborted on departure from stand, replacement part flown in from elsewhere was found to be useless, necessitating another part being flown in from still another airport, total delay 10 hours) - it's just that certain aspects of the original 261/2001 judgement seem to be being diluted to the point where, as the Mail puts it, 'many of the ECs are too vague'.:(
Need a bit of moral support (as I suspect to many others). Keep up the good work.

And of course the "work" of the NEBs (comprised of exactly which NEBs? I am unable to find out) flies in the face of the EC proposals here, specifically Annex 1 about faults discovered at pushback!
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=COM:2013:0130:FIN:EN:HTML

SALERNO

Interesting as they had also rejected my claim for the outward flight on 4 Jun 12 (MON1828) so I will also now starting 'round 4' with them !

Thank you

dantopofsnowdon wrote: »

:T

Re: Flight MON1829 CORFU-MANCHESTER 4TH JUNE 2012.
As I am not a regular forum contributor, I'm unsure about which thread to share my good news so bear with me if this isn't it. Today, I received compensation cheques from Monarch for a claim they previously rejected on the grounds of a technical fault being an `exceptional circumstance`. I wrote to them again at the beginning of August, following the publication of guidelines issued by European regulators, asking them to review my case. (I suspected the technical fault - fuel filter - should have been dealt with as part of routine maintenance). I sent 3 letters over a period of 12 months and eventually got nearly £700 in compensation, so people, don't give up. Here's hoping this flies in the face of the Daily Mail article!:j

Mark2spark

Excellent JP :T

Annex 1
'Annex: non-exhaustive list of circumstances considered as extraordinary circumstances for the purposes of this Regulation
1. The following circumstances shall be considered as extraordinary:
i. natural disasters rendering impossible the safe operation of the flight;
ii. technical problems which are not inherent in the normal operation of the aircraft, such as the identification of a defect during the flight operation concerned and which prevents the normal continuation of the operation; or a hidden manufacturing defect revealed by the manufacturer or a competent authority and which impinges on flight safety;
iii. security risks, acts of sabotage or terrorism rendering impossible the safe operation of the flight;
iv. life-threatening health risks or medical emergencies necessitating the interruption or deviation of the flight concerned;
v. air traffic management restrictions or closure of airspace or an airport;
vi. meteorological conditions incompatible with flight safety; and
vii. labour disputes at the operating air carrier or at essential service providers such as airports and Air Navigation Service Providers.
2. The following circumstances shall not be considered as extraordinary:
i. technical problems inherent in the normal operation of the aircraft, such as a problem identified during the routine maintenance or during the pre-flight check of the aircraft or which arises due to failure to correctly carry out such maintenance or pre-flight check; and
ii. unavailability of flight crew or cabin crew (unless caused by labour disputes).

Do you have a date of when that was published?

Sweet_FA

Sweet_FA wrote: »

Hi all.

This is my first post on here, so please be patient with me!

A wonderful holiday in Turkey was ruined for my partner & I by a delay of in excess of 5 hours on our return Monarch flight from Dalaman to Manchester.

We became aware of the delay when we checked Monarch's website on the morning of our return flight from Dalaman. We were due to leave Dalaman at 22:00, arriving in Manchester at 00:35 local time. However, Monarch's website stated that the flight was delayed & was due to arrive at 05:55, a delay of more than 5 hours!

I'll try not to go into too much detail, but our return flight left Dalaman at around 03:20 am and arrived in Manchester at 06.00 (a delay of almost five & a half hours).

On boarding the aircraft, the pilot apologised for the delay. He stated that the reason for the delay was that the plane had been damaged by baggage handlers the previous day (from what I can recall, around 36 hours before we were due to fly back from Dalaman).

I complained in writing to Monarch & have now received claim forms for my partner & I. Looking at previous posts I get the feeling that Monarch will try to reject our claims due to 'Extraordinary Circumstances'. I'm just wondering whether they can claim 'EC' due to the fact that the plane had been damaged the previous day by a third party (the baggage handlers)?

Any feedback regarding the above from previous posters/claimants would be greatly appreciated.

I have now received a response from Monarch to my compensation claim. No surprise that they're claiming EC's. This is their response,

'Our records show that the aircraft scheduled to operate your flight sustained damage to the rear door of the aircraft by a set of steps. Engineers attended the aircraft and began repairing the damage. Due to the length of time taken to repair the fault, the crew operating your flight exceeded their maximum legal operating hours and were therefore required to take a minimum rest period before completing the flight. Usually in circumstances such as these, we would call on our standby crew to continue your flight. However, due to industrial action within French Air Traffic Control the previous two days, our standby crew had already been utilised to cope with the unusually high demand for additional flying to ensure the fleet and flying programme were not disrupted. The strike affected all flights operating in and around French airspace. Many areas of French airspace were either closed or heavily restricted due to staff shortages. Routings avoiding French airspace were used but these were heavily regulated due to the huge demand for this airspace. Some flights were rerouted to avoid the French airspace but still had large ATC delays and incurred much higher flying times.

Despite our best efforts we were unable to transfer your flight to a third party operator and as a result your flight was unavoidably delayed

Having considered the factual background of this case, we are satisfied that the disruption was caused by an extraordinary circumstance that could not have reasonably been prevented by Monarch Airlines. We are, therefore, unable to accept your claim for compensation for the reasons given.'

Monarch seem to be stating that the knock on effects of damage caused to the aircraft prior to a previous flight are EC's. They're also waffling on about strike action by French Air Traffic Controllers that ended three days prior to our departure date. I'm presuming this is all irrelevant?

As suspected, it looks like my partner & I will have to issue a summons through the small claims court to have any chance of getting the compensation we are due. Does anyone know if we can submit a joint claim against Monarch?

Vauban

Yes. Two names can fit into the claimant box on the MCOL form.

JPears

Mark2spark wrote: »

Excellent JP :T

Annex 1
'Annex: non-exhaustive list of circumstances considered as extraordinary circumstances for the purposes of this Regulation
1. The following circumstances shall be considered as extraordinary:
i. natural disasters rendering impossible the safe operation of the flight;
ii. technical problems which are not inherent in the normal operation of the aircraft, such as the identification of a defect during the flight operation concerned and which prevents the normal continuation of the operation; or a hidden manufacturing defect revealed by the manufacturer or a competent authority and which impinges on flight safety;
iii. security risks, acts of sabotage or terrorism rendering impossible the safe operation of the flight;
iv. life-threatening health risks or medical emergencies necessitating the interruption or deviation of the flight concerned;
v. air traffic management restrictions or closure of airspace or an airport;
vi. meteorological conditions incompatible with flight safety; and
vii. labour disputes at the operating air carrier or at essential service providers such as airports and Air Navigation Service Providers.
2. The following circumstances shall not be considered as extraordinary:
i. technical problems inherent in the normal operation of the aircraft, such as a problem identified during the routine maintenance or during the pre-flight check of the aircraft or which arises due to failure to correctly carry out such maintenance or pre-flight check; and
ii. unavailability of flight crew or cabin crew (unless caused by labour disputes).

Do you have a date of when that was published?

Its actually a proposal, not confirmed/ratified or whatever, I believe from April 2013. It may actually be the proposed new amended Reg261/2004 which narrows the goalposts for claims BUT appears to firm up the regulations. To be honest I haven't read the whole document as I have other priorities at the moment! If the airlines can start spout the farcical and self serving NEB ECs document in court then a claimant has every right to use this document.

klint

JPears wrote: »

Its actually a proposal, not confirmed/ratified or whatever, I believe from April 2013. It may actually be the proposed new amended Reg261/2004 which narrows the goalposts for claims BUT appears to firm up the regulations. To be honest I haven't read the whole document as I have other priorities at the moment! If the airlines can start spout the farcical and self serving NEB ECs document in court then a claimant has every right to use this document.

Thanks JP, this is interesting. It's a pity it's only a proposal. If it had already been made into a regulation, our lives would have been so much easier.

Some more background data about this proposal can be found here:
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:52013PC0130:EN:NOT

I think this proposal can be referred to as "COD 2013/0072". It was created on 13/3/2013.

If Monarch starts mentioning the NEBs' document in court, I think that instead of countering with a mention of the EU proposal, it would be better to just point out that the NEBs' document has no legal significance and should therefore be ignored. The judge would probably thank you for not wasting their time.