Flight delay and cancellation compensation, Jet2.com ONLY

NoviceAngel

DrA_Harrogate wrote: »

Good morning all

In particular, they refer to the failure of a hydraulic unit as 'extraordinary' - so if anyone knows anything about/ has had experience of an hydraulic failure now would be a good time to mention it.

Many thanks

I would ask the Birds to produce maintenance records to show that the Plane had been maintained in accordance with the manufacturers guidelines and find out when the hydraulic unit had last been inspected.

All the best for the 30th!!! Good Luck!!!!!!!

I asked for a similar report in my case the Birds refused to supply the info, so I will be formally asking them to produce the info via the Courts directions.

Regards,

NoviceAngel

DrA_Harrogate

NoviceAngel wrote: »

I would ask the Birds to produce maintenance records to show that the Plane had been maintained in accordance with the manufacturers guidelines and find out when the hydraulic unit had last been inspected.
NoviceAngel

They seem to have done that okay.

DrA_Harrogate

111KAB wrote: »

Major hydraulic failure on 'my' Airbus - took Monarch to Court on the basis that a hydraulic failure is a technical problem and technical problems with planes are an ordinary everyday occurrence and judge agreed with me - so there I have mentioned it!

And indeed many thanks. A note of the Court, and Judge, would make my happiness complete... (PM if you prefer privacy)

David_e

DrA_Harrogate wrote: »

In particular, they refer to the failure of a hydraulic unit as 'extraordinary' - so if anyone knows anything about/ has had experience of an hydraulic failure now would be a good time to mention it.

I'll defer to the more expert on here but my thoughts:

Para 37 of Wallentin says:

"... the frequency of the technical problems experienced by an air carrier is not in itself a factor from which the presence or absence of ‘extraordinary circumstances’ ... can be concluded"

Now, as we have seen reported, some judges seem to be have an imperfect understanding of the law - including Wallentin. That being the case, having some statistics that show hydraulics fail frequently might be in your favour. Conversely, if the airline shows that these things fail very rarely, the judge may (mistakenly!) say that the event was therefore extraordinary, for the purpose of the Reg's. The point I am making is that bringing frequency into the case is (as far as I can see) not strictly relevant but if it is used, it may (incorrectly) influence the judge for but, equally, potentially against you.

In so far as there is any definition of EC, I think it's summarised in Para 34 of Wallentin.

" a technical problem … is not covered by the concept of ‘extraordinary circumstances’ … 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"

What was the event that caused the problem with the hydraulics? If it was wear and tear or even random failure (short of a known/reported manufacturing fault) then that is clearly something "inherent in the normal exercise of the activity of the air carrier". Parts fail in complex machines, to paraphrase Para 24.

NoviceAngel suggests asking for maintenance records. Again, Wallentin is quite clear (as I read it, at least) that compliance with servicing schedules is not an excuse against EC. The danger is that a judge may rule otherwise and say, "they did all they could" therefore it was extraordinary.

What do others think? Should you introduce this information or is it prefereable to stick closely to Wallentin to avoid inadvertently giving the defence some potential ammunition (if faced with an underinformed judge)?

111KAB

DrA_Harrogate wrote: »

And indeed many thanks. A note of the Court, and Judge, would make my happiness complete... (PM if you prefer privacy)

Worcester and Savage - I understand the transcript/details of the case are on the Monarch Complaints Facebook Page > https://www.facebook.com/MonarchComplaints

JPears

I think in most cases, something that occurs with high frequency, if stated in your court bundle, would have a certain difficulty if they tried to use against you, so I think it does no harm to add it in, BUT the main thrust should be as mentioned, techs are inherent in running of airline and not ECs.. A rare event might be more difficult to argue the point if the judge was not au fait with Wallentin etc.
Strictly, the use of the word frequency in Wallentin has not been quantified, in that neither a high or low frequency necessarily dictates an EC, or not, as the case maybe!!

David_e

JPears wrote: »

I think in most cases, something that occurs with high frequency, if stated in your court bundle, would have a certain difficulty if they tried to use against you, so I think it does no harm to add it in

Trouble is, if you don't know the frequency beforehand and ask as part of the court disclosures, the cat is out of the bag. If it turns out to be 1 in a million flights, the danger is that clouds the "exceptional" argument.

JPears wrote: »

BUT the main thrust should be as mentioned, techs are inherent in running of airline and not ECs.. A rare event might be more difficult to argue the point if the judge was not au fait with Wallentin etc.

Exactly.

Don't get me wrong, if it turns out the technical issue arises all the time, it is tempting to say "how can that be exceptional?". If we could guarantee that all judges were up to speed, I would stick firmly to the Wallentin line.

NoviceAngel

In my employ, I was speaking to an expert witness for engines the other day, not jet engines, rotary car engines.

We got chatting about my up and coming case with Jet2 and he made the following points :-

The idea of the small claims court is that you get 2 'lay' people that have a dispute, you rely on the District Judge to make a decision looking at case law and 'persuaded' by any 'expert' witness testimony and hopefully employing a modicum of common sense.

He did say, that very often it would be disproportionate for the Defendant to call expert witness testimony and employ legal representation due to the small sums involved and after all it is ‘only’ the small claims track. We know though that this part of common sense does not apply to Jet2.

In his field, he said very often that if a consumer requested his expert witness testimony and the judge agreed for him to give evidence then very often the other side would have employed barristers to defend the manufacturer and that they were more likely to succeed just because the District Judge is more likely to be swayed (“intimidated”) by the defence.

What I’m trying to say, not very well is that we can discuss case law, Wallentin, Sturgeon and all the other successes, failures, what should have been and what might have been. Aren’t we in danger of getting bogged down with legal arguments, best left to the judge?

Sometimes I research and then research some more, but I can’t match the many years of legal training and inside out, back to front case law that the 2Birds will throw my way, most of it half truths to fool an uneducated judge in seeing things their way. JPears case as an example.

For my case, I’m going to try and avoid the very technical legal arguments and leave them to the judge, I’m arguing my case, against common sense, right and wrong, We were delayed 6 hours missed a days work shattered from the experience and request compensation which we believe is rightly due. I will try and chip in with Wallentin and point out everything that I have learned on here, thanks to all the contributions by so many members, sharing the info.



BUT……. Doesn’t it just depend on who the judge is, how knowledgeable he is in this niche field and indeed what side of bed he got out of?

Good luck to everyone with cases coming up, mine hopefully will not be much longer and really looking forward to it!

Cheers

NoviceAngel

111KAB

Novice - sound analysis and reflects the position regarding my successful claim against Monarch Airlines. The Judge in my case understood the situation and indeed at the first hearing told Monarch to go away and have a re-think.... they did ... came back and got the same answer. The airlines just try it on and unfortunately in some cases they succeed.

David_e

NoviceAngel wrote: »

Aren’t we in danger of getting bogged down with legal arguments, best left to the judge?

The difficulty is knowing whether the judge has properly researched the law, in which case legal arguments are exactly what you do want, or whether they haven't, in which case arguing about what individual faults are and how frequently they arise may be the most successful route.

NoviceAngel wrote: »

BUT……. Doesn’t it just depend on who the judge is, how knowledgeable he is in this niche field and indeed what side of bed he got out of?

I think that is precisely the issue. If judges were properly up to speed, the success rate would be 99.9% rather than the 95% (or whatever) reported on the forum.