Flight delay and cancellation compensation, Easyjet ONLY

Biggles

I'm following up from post #856 et al.

I was on EZY7404 from Amsterdam-Southend on 29 Jul 12. The flight was delayed by over 3½hrs due, we were told, to bad weather affecting another flight in a different part of England. The weather at AMS and SEN was fine.

I wrote to them on 9 Jan; it was recorded, so I know they received it but have not replied.

It would seem that none of my insurance policies cover legal expenses.

Is it worth pursuing easyJet in this case? Does anyone know how successful any legal pressure or court cases have been?

David_e

Biggles wrote: »

Is it worth pursuing easyJet in this case? Does anyone know how successful any legal pressure or court cases have been?

Read the FAQs and some of the threads. Use the search facility for any specific queries, such as "weather".

Legal action is very successful if you have the right fact pattern

Biggles

David_e wrote: »

Read the FAQs and some of the threads. Use the search facility for any specific queries, such as "weather".

Legal action is very successful if you have the right fact pattern

I've done all that but not found the answer, hence my further post.

Are you saying that legal action, in the circumstances I describe, is normally successful in the case of easyJet?

Vauban

Biggles wrote: »

I've done all that but not found the answer, hence my further post.

Are you saying that legal action, in the circumstances I describe, is normally successful in the case of easyJet?

Have a read of the court successes thread. That will give you a feel for what happens in court. To be honest, although the regs are clear that only weather directly affecting the flight is extraordinary, the small claims court is a bit of a lottery. You should win, but ...

David_e

Biggles wrote: »

I've done all that but not found the answer, hence my further post.

Probably best to speak to a no win no fee firm then, to be honest.

FairWorldCitizen

Dear forum members,

As promised, I am putting here the details of an issue I have had with Easyjet and the output. I am putting all the data together so it can help other people to deal with a similar claim. And because it could in fact allow passengers from the same flight request a compensation (they are on time), I have included the flight details.

This case has been published in The Telegraph under the travel section.

Case summary:

On 8th May 2012, our flight 5270 from Venice, Italy to London, UK operated by EasyJet (duration 2 hours) was delayed of 14 hours.
On that day, EasyJet was operating 2 flights from/to the same cities, 12:00 and 21:40.
The aircraft used for the first flight suffered some technical issue which delayed the first flight.
They chose to use our aircraft for the first flight (this was explained by the airport staff) and ... they let us down (flight cancelled at 00:40).
We got a replacement flight for the following day (which was delayed of 1h30) but at the end we reached UK after a 3 hours night and 14 hours late.

Case details:

I sent a letter to The Telegraph, called "The Easyjet experience".
Unfortunately the forum doesn't let me include the link to this email, which would include all details about the awful company's behaviour.


I. Complaints to the airline:

I wrote to the EasyJet customer service 4 times. I requested a 500 EUR compensation (250 EUR per passenger), as per European regulation only.
They denied that they had to pay any compensation, and included responses which directly deny the regulation's content.

My own response was that the law is clear, that they were disgusting, that a low cost company is low cost because they give you a 1 cm space for your legs and not because the law doesn’t apply to them, and therefore I seeked legal action.


II. Complaint sent to UK Consummer centre, UK Civil Aviation, Italian Aviation and Italian National enforcement body:

Dear Sir or Madam,

We are seeking your help as a result of a dispute with the Easyjet airline.
We are contacting you directly as advised by the UK European Consumer Centre today. We had also used the information explained on your website to complain to the company’s customer service.

On 8th May 2012, our flight for 2 people from Venice to London, operated by Easyjet, was cancelled and our arrival to destination delayed of 14 hours. Not only it impacted our professional activities, but the behaviour of the company was incredibly awful.
Full flight details are: number 5270, Venice Marco Polo to London Gatwick, departure 8th May 2012 at 21:40. Airline booking reference: xxx.

We recorded a complaint directly to the company’s customer service on 15th May, describing the facts as they are. I have attached all correspondence with the company (you will find the first complaint in complaint.pdf), but as a summary the facts are as follows:

- The flight suffered a overall delay of 14 hours;
- The company used our flight’s aircraft for another flight - this was confirmed by the airport staff onsite;
- The flight was cancelled almost 3 hours after the flight time;
- The company moved the flight to the following day at 10:05;
- The company didn’t provide any subsistence to passengers at the airport, including elderly or children;
- The company wasn’t able to provide accommodation for the passengers until 3.45 AM (this is the time of our arrival to the hotel), and the passengers had to manage themselves their transfer to the hotel, outside of the airport;
- The flight re-scheduled for 10:05 the next day took off at 11:45.
As per European law, the company is supposed to at least pay us a compensation of 250 EUR per passenger (so, 500 EUR in our case). Indeed:
- The flight was operated under EU regulations,
- The flight was cancelled (please also see flightstats.co.uk),
- The arrival delay was (far!) more than 3 hours,
- The problem occurred because our aircraft was used for another flight, as confirmed by the airport staff itself, and therefore the delay is totally the airline’s fault. No exceptional circumstances applied to our flight, since no weather condition, no industrial action, no safety issue or air traffic justified that the company used our plane for another of their flight.
However since then, the employee from the company’s customer service has constantly refused to recognize the facts. And the only response we have had is that there seems to be a lack of training of the company’s staff, and that "the company may consider issuing a refund for the meal/refreshment upon receiving the receipts as a gesture of goodwill.".

Is your organization able to help us ?

Kind regards,


All these official bodies confirmed that we were entitled to a compensation as per the European regulation. However, after 7 months we had not received any output.
The UK Civil Aviation chased the Italian bodies a number of times. It seems that my complaint was not processed at all, as they re-accepted the complaint and issued another confirmation.
A few weeks ago however, I received from the Italian enforcement body a dubious copy of letter explaining that they had been in touch with the airline, and based on the airline’s data, our complaint was not successful. I honestly doubt that such exchange with the airline has ever happened.


III. Advice requested to Mrs Charlton from The Telegraph.

Question:
See copy of letter above

Response:
Mrs Charlton advised to simply sue Easyjet in the court, based on the airline’s notoriety.


IV. Court claim presented from a specialised lawyers group - EU Claim.

We submitted the case details to these specialised solicitors, including all flight details, airline's responses and exchanges with CAA. They validated the claim.

They tried to get in touch with Easyjet but no response was received.
Therefore the lawyer moved to the next step.

Easyjet recognised they owed the money and preferred to settle the claim. They however pretended to have already contacted us and sent a cheque, which obviously wasn't true. They said they would resend a cheque, but we never received it. The lawyer explained it was a new strategy from Easyjet to pretend that they had tried to pay.
Therefore the lawyer moved to the next step, i.e. pre-action disclosure and court proceedings pursuant to Article 7 of EC Regulation 261/2004.

The company preferred to settle the claim. They were given 42 days to pay the compensation.

At last after several weeks, the compensation was PAID.

It seems that the airline has tried to avoid contact with the court. I believe this is for 4 reasons: first, to avoid claimable interests based on a delay of payment of around 18 months; secondly, to try to avoid additional court fees that they would have to return; third, to avoid an extended claim by not taking only the European regulation into account; finally, to avoid the case being recorded as successful in the lawyers's database which means more passengers will be aware.

I can only say that Easyjet will have been disgusting until the end.

FairWorldCitizen

I am including here the letter sent to The Telegraph that I previously mentioned:

Dear Mrs Charlton,


I wonder if you could help with this problem that we have with an airline. We tried with the company's customer service but to no avail. We then tried with different authorities, which informed us and confirmed our rights but didn't provide any further help.

On the 8th of May 2012, at the end of a wonderful short stay in Venice - where I proposed my girlfriend - our return flight to London Gatwick suffered a delay of 14 hours (the duration was supposed to be 2 hours). This flight was operated by EasyJet. Not only the delay was enormous but the EasyJet's behaviour was awful.

At the end of this email we are including the details of this "EasyJet experience", the empirical facts as they happened. But overall for your understanding, on that evening of the 8th May 2012 the airline decided to use our aircraft for another of their flight (this information was provided by the airport), and then... they let us down.

Keeping aside the EasyJet's terrible customer care on that day, as per law (European Regulation 261/2004) this company is supposed to pay a compensation of 250 EUR per passenger. In our personal case, this amount would in fact cover the financial loss caused by the delay as we both work and lost one day of income.

The regulation is very clear, and different official bodies have confirmed that we are entitled to this compensation. However the airline doesn't want to pay.


I am not sure how you could help us obtaining our compensation, because perhaps you are busy with many queries. However, first I would be very happy if the airline's "services" were described in your newspaper. Passengers should know which airlines are good and which are not concerned with any minimum respect for people, and believe that the law doesn't apply to them.
Secondly, if you had at least any advice to give us on our own case, then it would probably help a lot. We are modest people with modest incomes, so we want to receive a compensation; but it is also a question of respect and principles.


The regulation, which can be found on Wikipedia, establishes that an airline must pay a compensation of 250 EUR, when a flight of less than 1500 km in distance:
- has been cancelled (this compensation then comes on top of other obligations such as re-routing);
- or has suffered a delay of more than 2 hours (this compensation then comes on top on other minimum obligations such as meals, drinks and accommodation), including when the company offered a re-routing and the arrival time was more than 2 hours after the original expected time.

It is also important to note an established fact: our aircraft didn't suffer any technical problems and no extraordinary conditions affected the flight. Our aircraft was simply used by the company for another of their flights.


Right after this unbelievable flight, we contacted the EasyJet's customer service. However, they refused to pay and their last response was the following: "I acknowledge that you are going to take a legal action. (...) I am unable to process the EU claim as it is not applicable for delayed flights."!
It is also interesting to note that, to our question about how it is possible that passengers were not provided with any drink or meal during all their waiting at the airport, they replied "we may consider issuing a refund for the meal/refreshment upon receiving the receipts as a gesture of goodwill."!

After these responses, the conclusion about this airline is that not only they behaved awfully on the 8th of May 2012, but their service in a whole is just disgusting.

We have attached to this email the letters exchanged with the person who responded to - understand repeatedly rejected - our complaint.


Given that the airline openly defies the law, we have contacted a number of official entities. The UK European Consumer Centre redirected us to the UK Civil Aviation, which confirmed that we are entitled to a compensation, and on our behalf contacted the Italian National Enforcement Body and the Italian Civil Aviation Authority (ENAC). Our complaint was accepted. However we haven't received any response yet, after the 6 months indicated in the complaint handling procedure. The UK Civil Aviation has been chasing them recently but with no result. I believe that given the number of complaints that they deal with, they haven't been able to progress anything, and that we will not receive any output.


We have attached the complaint that we presented to these different authorities, because I think it is a good summary. We can also provide the correspondence/confirmations from these different official bodies if you wish.

Please would you then be able to help or advise?

Many thanks

---

Appendix: The EasyJet experience.

In detail what happened on the 8th of May 2012 was the following...

Our flight was scheduled to depart at 21:40 in Venice to arrive at London Gatwick at 22:45 (duration 2h05).

We arrived at the airport around 2 hours in advance. We noticed that another EasyJet flight (departure time 12:15) was indicated as "delayed". It was later switched to "Cancelled". After all this waiting time, the passengers seemed exhausted and very angry with the company.

One hour before our departure time, we were advised that our flight was delayed of one hour.

The previous flight operated by EasyJet was then suddenly open again. The reason is that EasyJet chose to use our aircraft for that other flight! This was explained by the member of the airport staff which was in touch with the airline.

Our own flight stayed indicated as "delayed" until around 00:30 (i.e. almost 3 hours after our departure time). Meanwhile, no announcement was done, obliging passengers to run from one desk to another to request information.

Until then, we were advised that we could change our booking for the following EasyJet flight which was on the following day at 12:15. However, EasyJet informed that there was only a few seats available; also, on requesting details, they responded that they would not pay for an accommodation!

As per the "Customer support information for disrupted services" which is an EasyJet leaflet available on desks, we could ask for a meal for any delay of more than 2 hours. We were responded that this could not be because of the time.

At 00:30 only, the flight was (confirmed as) cancelled.

At 1 am, the airport doors were closing. We were requested to move outside to wait for a bus which was supposed to take us to a hotel. We were advised that a replacement flight was set up on the next day at 10:05 am (i.e. 2h10 prior to the previously re-routing offered). This was however communicated by a passenger, because the airport didn't do it.

At 2:20 am, no bus had appeared. Only 2 taxis were available to move all passengers to a hotel! We were requested by the airport staff to call local taxis ourselves. The hotels were not known by the airport staff until around 2:45 am.

We, the passengers, then had to organize ourselves our move to the hotels! Only one of the airport staff helped, the other ones who were still around refused to do anything. On request of giving their names they refused and hide their staff cards.

We were finally at a hotel after 3:45 am.

In the morning, a bus was supposed to take the passengers outside at 8 am. It arrived at 09:30.

The replacement flight, planned for 10:05, left at around 11:45.

At last, we reached the Gatwick airport, with a delay of 14 hours!!!

zudecke

Hi,

Had a flight scheduled to depart CPH @ 10.50.. The flight is now estimated to leave at 16:15.. Means I'd have been sitting here for 5.5 hours.

Is there anything by way of compensation I could claim for?

Seems wildly unacceptable..

Typing this from CPH airport - thanks!

Z

David_e

zudecke wrote: »

Is there anything by way of compensation I could claim for?

Read the FAQs and, if you have any further questions not answered there, please post on the EasyJet thread.

tinkerbell63

We were delayed on a flight - manchester to malaga back in october 2008 - flight delay due to lightening strike on inbound flight from greek islands so it had to land in Athens. Our flight was subsequently cancelled as that was the plane they were due to be using. We were supposed to fly at 7am - eventually flew at 11.55am. I sent an email - no clain because they said flight wasnt delayed. I replied giving details. They then repkied saying they had to check info with support team. No repky for a while. Chased it up, they apologised for delay and said they would contact support team again. Got an email on friday to say our delay not extraordinary and they would pay out and wanting our details. Ill post when payment comes through. Have to say, no real problems or fobbing off with the claim - so far so good :-)