Flight delay and cancellation compensation, Easyjet ONLY

bagand96

Hmmm, more like he bottled it

Well obviously you are well qualified to make that statement. More qualified than the Captain of the aircraft who is trained to make such decisions and who's ultimate responsibility is to get himself, the rest of his crew, and all his passengers back on Earth in one piece!

Investigating this when we returned home, we got proof that every flight into Iceland had landed that day (59 other flights) except ours - one was 6 mins before ours and one was 6 mins after

While incredibly frustrating, it's not really relevant. Wind is a dynamic thing and moves by the second. You probably were very unlucky that the wind was such a problem at the exact time your landing was attempted but its impossible to forecast it that accurately and if it was too dangerous to continue the approach then so be it.

this was pilot incompetence or something else that's hidden, rather than bad weather!

It is exactly the opposite. It is a case of a competent Captain and his ops department making difficult but safe decisions in order to keep you safe. Keeping going against the odds has resulted in thousands of deaths in aeroplanes. Sounds dramatic? Maybe... but its the truth.

As per the EU legislation weather is considered beyond the airline's control. Vauban is absolutely correct, you can claim for reasonable food and taxi costs.

richardw

kels146 wrote: »

....I am so upset by this situation as we lost 24 hours of a surprise 40th birthday present...

Hi Kellie, Welcome to MSE. Sometimes bad weather gets in the way of the convenience and speed of air travel and your plans can go wrong. The highly trained easyJet pilot seems to have avoided bad wind conditions which may have been too risky and taken appropriate action.

gcdh

Vauban wrote: »

Some CEDR rejected your case, not just the airline?

How about you tell us exactly what was said, and the circumstances of your delay, and then maybe we can offer proper advice?

Hi Vauban,

I was on an EasyJet flight from Corfu to Luton last October which was delayed by 11 hours. They claim it was due to bad weather (but no other inbound and outbound flights were cancelled or delayed for this long) which meant they diverted to Athens and hit issue of staff reaching their maximum hours.

Our claim was rejected by CEDR last week. I wanted to investigate the possibility of appealing and/or any next steps, which is how I came across this forum. Scrolling through responses, I came across clairet202 who had sought advice for her claim... And her description of it matched my flight. Her latest post said her claim has been successful, so I contacted her to confirm it was the same flight. She kindly did so and sent me what evidence EasyJet submitted against her claim (which she refers to in previous posts). Their defence is EXACTLY the same document as what they submitted for my claim.

I contacted CEDR today to ask why ours was rejected and can we submit a new claim. They are firmly refusing, on the basis that each adjudicator comes to their own decision and interpretation of the evidence, even if the claim and evidence submitted in defence is exactly the same. To quote from their email:
"...unfortunately this case can’t be re-opened. Each adjudicator is entitled to reach their own conclusions on each case and their view of e.g. ‘extraordinary circumstances’ may differ from case to case. I understand that you may find this frustrating but this process ensures the complete impartiality of each adjudicator and the Scheme itself. It may help if I explain that we do not have a system of ‘precedent’ for our Schemes which means that each case is considered on a case by case basis and any decision does not influence future or similar cases. Just as e.g. in a court of law you could present the same case to a number of judges and they may reach a ‘reasonable’ but ultimately slightly different conclusion."

To reiterate, we were on the same flight, EasyJet submitted the same evidence as defence and, having chatted with clairet202, we actually argued the same points in response to this. But this apparently does not matter, it's due to individual interpretations, albeit of exactly the same facts. On the phone to CEDAR earlier, they said my partner and I cannot make a new claim as we are on the same booking reference.

I'd love for any help from the good ship MSE! This is surely unfair and, at the very least, future claimants via CEDR need to be made aware of this...

111KAB

gcdh - it appears that you may well have to go to court to resolve. Assuming you have read through various pages on MSE and, more importantly, read Vauban's Guide possibly the first decision is whether to go it alone (DIY) or use a solicitor (such as Bott & Co.) on a no win no fee (NWNF) basis.


DIY returns are greater but with certain risks whereas NWNF will provide c. 70% of the amount due.


If you DIY an important part of your claim will be a witness statement regarding payment made by EJ on YOUR SAME FLIGHT in respect of a 261/2004 claim. Ensure you can obtain this. You may wish to advise EJ you are obtaining this (they read this pages anyway) and that may prompt them to cough up.


If you decide to NWNF then advise the solicitor that you have already gone through the CEDR procedure etc BUT you know of another party who will provide a statement to the effect that they were paid.


Only my thoughts ... others may disagree but from experience if the matter does end up in court judges look unfavourably upon defendants (EJ) who have already admitted liability in respect of the flight in question.

firefox1956

Its thanks to the professionalism of the pilot that you only lost 24 hours of you trip & not the rest of your life !!!!!

JPears

Close thread?
Should be on EJ anyway

yelyahm91

Hi everyone, I wonder if I could get some advice on how to respond to the defence Easyjet has submitted to my CEDR case? I was delayed overnight and rerouted to Bologna on a trip to Venice from Gatwick and Easyjet is saying that the inbound flight from Milan to Gatwick, due to be the plane to take us from Gatwick to Venice, was delayed by bad weather and ATC restrictions and therefore had to be cancelled. I understand ATC restrictions count as exceptional circumstances but as these restrictions caused a knock on effect and weren't actually imposed on my flight I'm not really sure where I stand.

"Particulars of claim
12. The aircraft which the Respondent originally assigned to operate the Flight was an Airbus A319 bearing registration number G-EZTR (the Aircraft).
13. On the Flight Date, prior to the operation of the Flight, the Aircraft was also scheduled to
operate flight EZY 5296 (the Outbound Flight) from Milan Malpensa Airport (MXP) to LGW.
14. The Aircraft departed at 15:06 UTC on the Flight Date to operate the Outbound Flight, however, due to adverse weather conditions in the form of thunderstorms at LGW that would have prevented the Aircraft from arriving there safely and resultant ATC slot restrictions, the Aircraft was required to divert to London Southend Airport (SEN) [annex, pages 6 - 7].
15. Owing to the continued adverse weather conditions at LGW, and the closure of air space in the London area as a result of the thunderstorms at LGW, the Respondent was unable to operate a positioning flight from SEN - LGW to operate the Flight.
16. The Respondent reviewed the possibility of sourcing a replacement aircraft from LGW to
operate the Flight, but owing to the earlier diversion to SEN, the crew scheduled to operate the Flight had reached their maximum hours of permissible continuous duty. At the material time, there was no replacement crew available at LGW to re-crew the flight on another aircraft. As a result the respondent was required to cancel the flight.
17. The Defendant has no control over the weather, ATC or the decisions of ATC themselves.
18. The Respondent offered all passengers the option of a full refund of the original ticket price or re-routing on the next available flight from LGW to VCE in accordance with their obligations under Article 8 of the Regulation.
19. The cancellation of the Flight as a result of the adverse weather conditions was not within the actual control of the carrier and cannot possibly be anticipated.
20. Accordingly, the Flight was cancelled due to extraordinary circumstances which could not have been avoided even if all reasonable measures had been taken for the purposes of Article 5(3) of the Regulation.
Reasonable Measures
21. The cancellation could not have been avoided even if all reasonable measures had been taken, within the meaning of Article 5(3).
22. The Defendant will rely on the guidance provided by the CJEU to say that "all reasonable
measures" means:
"...measures appropriate to the situation, that is to say measures which, at the time those
extraordinary circumstances arose, met, inter alia, conditions which were technically and
economically viable for the air carrier concerned...That party must establish that, even if it had
deployed all its resources in terms of staff or equipment and the financial means at its disposal, it would clearly not have been able - unless it had made intolerable sacrifices in the light of the capacities of its undertaking at the relevant time - to prevent the extraordinary circumstances with which it was confronted from leading to the cancellation of the flight". (Wallentin-Hermann (above) at §§ 40 and 43).
23. The Defendant took all reasonable measures and/or employed all resources at its disposal to avoid the cancellation of the Flight including attempting to source a replacement aircraft and a replacement crew to operate the flight. There was no other reasonable and/or technically and/or economically viable option available to the Defendant that would have enabled it to operate the Flight."

If you need any more information please let me know and thanks in advance for your help

Tyzap

Hi yelyahm91,

My thoughts on the problem and some possible points to raise with CEDR.

Gatwick is EJ's largest base, by quite some margin, with something like 60 based aircraft and associated flight crew. Therefore, they should have standby or spare resources available to deal with this sort of problem. Whether there were many others on that day, which outstripped their resources is unknown and may be a possibility. This is unlikely however as this was not mentioned in their defence.

The main point is that this was a knock on from a delay to a previous flight, your flight could not depart due to an earlier problem. This means the delay to your flight was not an extraordinary circumstance and does not let them off the compensation hook.

Another area to scrutinise would be, did they do all that they could to prevent the cancelled flight? Given the size of their LGW base and the massive resources available to them, probably not. Did they attempt to put you on another flight, could they have got you there earlier?

Without knowing the date, the weather conditions on that day, your flight details and how long ATC restrictions were in place, it's hard to say. Perhaps Google can help you here.

Why did they re route you and still not get you to your destination? Were you left to make your own way from Bologna? Make this point to CEDR.

Something which does not make any sense to me is that EJ state...

"EZY 5296 (the Outbound Flight) from Milan Malpensa Airport (MXP) to LGW"

This was diverted to SEN and EJ suggested that this was the prior flight to your own. However, if that was an outbound flight (from Milan) it follows that it should then return to Milan as the inbound flight and not become the aircraft to operate your flight. This could just be a typo or mistake on their behalf but it requires further investigation to be able to follow the reason given and the timeline.

Good luck.

razorsedge

yelyahm91 wrote: »

20. Accordingly, the Flight was cancelled due to extraordinary circumstances which could not have been avoided even if all reasonable measures had been taken for the purposes of Article 5(3) of the Regulation.
Reasonable Measures
21. The cancellation could not have been avoided even if all reasonable measures had been taken, within the meaning of Article 5(3).
22. The Defendant will rely on the guidance provided by the CJEU to say that "all reasonable
measures" means:
"...measures appropriate to the situation, that is to say measures which, at the time those
extraordinary circumstances arose, met, inter alia, conditions which were technically and
economically viable for the air carrier concerned...That party must establish that, even if it had
deployed all its resources in terms of staff or equipment and the financial means at its disposal, it would clearly not have been able - unless it had made intolerable sacrifices in the light of the capacities of its undertaking at the relevant time - to prevent the extraordinary circumstances with which it was confronted from leading to the cancellation of the flight". (Wallentin-Hermann (above) at §§ 40 and 43).
23. The Defendant took all reasonable measures and/or employed all resources at its disposal to avoid the cancellation of the Flight including attempting to source a replacement aircraft and a replacement crew to operate the flight. There was no other reasonable and/or technically and/or economically viable option available to the Defendant that would have enabled it to operate the Flight."

Section 22 states that they must establish that they could do nothing about the situation and section 23 states that they did, but, have they provided any actual proof that they took all reasonable measures?

yelyahm91

Hi guys, thanks so much for your thoughts they're really helpful already. Here's a link to the full document I've received from Easyjet goo.gl/OseY9V if you'd like to have a proper look. They've attached screenshots of their system logs as their evidence which state the inbound flight was diverted to Southend due to the ATC restrictions and needing to refuel followed by no crew being available for our flight.

The flight was due to depart at 17:50 on 10th October 2014, the weather wasn't great and there were delays but as far as I can remember ours was one of, if not the only, flight cancelled. I looked up the weather report for that evening and there was a thunderstorm at around the time we were due to depart which I have mentioned in my correspondence with Easyjet but they managed to operate another flight to a different destination departing at exactly the same time.

As for rerouting to Bologna, they offered us a flight to Venice departing extremely late from Gatwick or the option to go to Bologna on a much earlier flight and make our own way there which we chose as we didn't want to waste the entire trip. I have had a full refund already for the expense to get from Bologna to Venice which went through really quickly surprisingly.

Thanks again for your help