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

LBD

I got an email reply apologising and detailing how their fleet was overstretched due to the lack of new aircraft and new routes. This showed how busy their schedule is which means little time for routine maintenance and any delay having a knock-on effect to the next flight.


A copy of that email would be most useful in a court bundle...

LBD

I also agree that sharing and pooling information for court cases may well be helpful, obviously redact all personal details, and no post them on the main forum for obvious reasons...lol

I also think passing on the response from them to the CAA may eventually help as well, given the amount of EC excuses they are using!..

The_Wingco

How about all of us contacting Ann Robinson's 'Watchdog' consumer affairs TV programme? (Not so much about the issue of compensation - though that's important - but regarding the arrogant and dishonest treatment of complainants)

AJR6266

[FONT=&quot]ZB595 – Faro to MAN – 24/10/2012[/FONT][FONT=&quot][/FONT]
Initially claimed in November for 3 adult passengers. We got an acknowledgment with a claim number and a claim form to complete.
We returned the claim forms by email & by post, we have tried to contact Monarch for an update but to date have received nothing back. No sure what to do next? Planning to send it again recorded but not sure from some of these post if were wasting our time? Good to hear any positive claims from Monarch ...... :j

bluep

We had a delayed flight with Monarch last year - just over 3 hours (so not half as bad as most of you but we were travelling with a child and the time of night was a killer. Originally we were due to land at 10pm, then they rescheduled the flight we had book (about 4-6 weeks before the departure date) to leave 2.5 hours later, then we were delayed on the day for 3 hours - so all in all, we ended up arriving in the very early hours of the morning (at our hotel at 5am having been travelling since 3pm the day before) which was a nightmare with a 7 year old and ruined the first couple of days of our holiday. Oh and it was over 2000 miles so 3 of us at the full rate of compensation - worth persevering with.

We weren't told of any technical issues, just that the plane was late arriving for the changeover (and someone told us informally at the airport that this always happens with that particular flight). I've looked on the flight status website and indeed, that flight, for the 3 months before and month after (I didn't look any further than that!) has NEVER left on time. It has been delayed 30 mins - 5 hours every single week without failure - usually 1 - 3 hours.

So I'm thinking...even if Monarch did come up with an EC technical reason, its looking quite tenuous to actually argue EC if it happens every week....

Am I better off:
a) filing a vanilla claim, waiting for the EC argument (and at least having some info about the reason they give for the flight being delayed) whilst saving the flight stats info for a defence argument
or
b) writing in as a normal letter of complaint and asking for an explanation as to why it was delayed in order to gather information first?
or
c) filing a claim and giving them the late flight stats to pre-empt that argument in the hope that they just pay out...(unlikely!)?

I deal with the Tribunal service, case law and county court protective claims quite a lot in my profession so relatively comfortable with the idea of County Court and self-representing if I can.

Is there anyway to find out what time my flight actually landed at its destination? www.flightstats.co.uk doesn't have that information but my only concern is if the flight made up time in the air and comes in just under the 3 hours mark (it was around 3 hours 10 mins late in departing)

Hooks

Just received this email from Monarch, I'D LOVE TO KNOW WHAT WOULD BE THEIR FAULT, where to take this from here? any ideas?


Re: Flight MON1484 Gatwick to Dalaman on 17th September 2012

Thank you for taking the time to contact us in respect of your flight.

I am sorry to learn of the disappointment that prompted your correspondence. Providing our passengers with safe and efficient service is our first priority. I would like to reassure you that every reasonable effort is made to ensure the flights depart on time and in the unlikely event we are unable to do so, we aim to get you to your destination at the earliest opportunity. That said, our ability to keep disruption to a minimum is always dependant on the resources available to us on the day.

In some circumstances, passengers may be entitled to compensation under European Union laws. However, any monetary payments are subject to certain criteria being satisfied. Where the disruption is caused by an ‘extraordinary circumstance’ which the airline was reasonably unable to prevent, the carrier is not obliged to pay compensation. Extraordinary circumstances have been defined by the courts and the European Regulations themselves provide a non-exhaustive list of which circumstances can indeed be categorised as extraordinary.

Our records show that this flight was originally scheduled to be operated on a Euro Atlantic Boeing 767 which we had chartered from a third party operator. Unfortunately, following this aircraft’s completion of a previous flight from Sanford to Gatwick, Euro Atlantic recalled the aircraft back to its base in Lisbon. In order to reduce the length of your delay, we arranged for your flight to be operated by the first available aircraft from within the Monarch fleet.

Unfortunately, on the evening prior to the departure of your flight, the First Officer called in sick for this flight and we were unable to call out a replacement First Officer until 0900 hours on the date of departure. Further delay then ensued as a result of air traffic control restrictions.

Having considered the factual background of this incident, I am satisfied that this was indeed an extraordinary circumstance that could not have reasonably been prevented by Monarch. I am unable to agree to your claim for compensation.

Yours sincerely,

Big_GD

Mark2spark wrote: »

Hi, I have waded through reams of threads, but I'm unable to confirm a single poster that has had success with Monarch, so i invite posters to post here success stories.
AFAIA, I can only find one poster so far - and i've lost where that was from :cool: - that has even had an extraordinary circumstances denial of claim. (Apart from LDB)
Monarch so far appear to be not replying except to confirm receiving of the claim forms. Their Facebook page is awash with posters asking the same questions.
In my case, they have had completed claim forms with all supporting documents, by recorded delivery, for 10 weeks now.
I sent a LBA this week.
Mark.

Known flights that Monarch have agreed compensation on:
ZB227 PMI - LGW 07/10/12 Payment received

Flights denied for EC's
Mon3693 20/9/2011 Mombassa-Gatwick

Received compensation wrt Flight ZB3566 7th Oct for 2 passengers approx £ 419 ( 250 Euro each):T

Big_GD

Mark2spark wrote: »

Hi, I have waded through reams of threads, but I'm unable to confirm a single poster that has had success with Monarch, so i invite posters to post here success stories.
AFAIA, I can only find one poster so far - and i've lost where that was from :cool: - that has even had an extraordinary circumstances denial of claim. (Apart from LDB)
Monarch so far appear to be not replying except to confirm receiving of the claim forms. Their Facebook page is awash with posters asking the same questions.
In my case, they have had completed claim forms with all supporting documents, by recorded delivery, for 10 weeks now.
I sent a LBA this week.
Mark.

Known flights that Monarch have agreed compensation on:
ZB227 PMI - LGW 07/10/12 Payment received

Flights denied for EC's
Mon3693 20/9/2011 Mombassa-Gatwick

Known flights that Monarch have agreed compensation on:
ZB3566 LUTON - FIUMICINO 07/10/12 Payment received

lancs_ms

Just received my refusal to pay compensation from Monarch... guess what...extraordinary circumstances!

Re: Flight ZB581 Faro to Manchester on 3rd November 2012

Thank you for taking the time to contact us in respect of your flight.

[usual insincere guff cut here!]

Our records show that on the day of your flight, one of our
aircraft was forced to divert to Dalaman due to an in-flight technical emergency. Due to the lack of availability of engineers in Dalaman, we did send one of our own engineers along with the spare parts required down to Dalaman, however, the scheduled flying programme for that day was affected. As a result of this unforeseen technical problem and the lack of availability of engineers in Dalaman, it was unfortunate that your flight was subject to an unavoidable delay as, despite Monarch’s best efforts, we were unable to transfer your flight on to another aircraft from within the Monarch fleet.

As a consequence and in order to reduce the length of your delay, passengers on your flight were transferred to a ‘Euro Atlantic’ aircraft which we had chartered to operate the flight on our behalf. As the operator ‘Euro Atlantic’ was based in Lisbon the aircraft was flown directly to Faro and we operated the inbound flight to Manchester, prior to operating the flight from Manchester back to Faro.

Having considered the factual background of this incident, I am satisfied that this was indeed an extraordinary circumstance that could not have reasonably been prevented by Monarch. I am unable to agree to your clam for compensation.

The only thing that appears to be extraordinary is Monarch's steadfast desire to avoid paying out any compensation as required by the the EU for delayed flights.

What are your thoughts on Monarch's claim of EC in my case?

sensei1959

Monarch are stalling, I sent original letter in November. They sent a fprm in January. I completed them and returned them recorded delivery. They asked me to explain why there was a 7 hour delay. A "Because you made an operational decision to send the perfectly good plane due to take us to Majorca to Egypt to replace a broken down one", Received a notice by email it may be investigated this month, it may not, if the latter I may get another email. I wrote back clearly stating why this was unnaceptable,I copied in a solicitor. They tried fobbing me off, I wrote back again stating this was not good enough, copied in a solicitor and asked for a contact in a more senior position. I am giving them 7 days then I shall start contacting members of their board. They are deliberately stalling in the hope people give up.