Flight delay and cancellation compensation, Virgin Atlantic ONLY

David_e

spikey001 wrote: »

My NBA has been totally ignored by Virgin customer services, no response at all.

I'm not surprised. They are presumably inundated and maybe anticipate that a good proportion of those who send an NBA don't proceed with legal action.

WSoap

VS015 30th April 2014

Anyone on this flight? We were delayed for 16 hours, stuck at West Palm Beach Airport for a big portion of that time. The entire journey lasted a hellish 25 hours.

Here's the Story:

We got to Orlando International without incident, but were unable to land, due to apparent bad weather at the location (I know, I know, not a good sign for a claim)

However, one of the main causes for the delay was the requirement to refuel while we were holding above Orlando, and the decision was made to refuel at West Palm Beach Airport (landing around 00:00 local time), which airport staff later informed us was very ill-equipped to deal with a large commercial airliner, and that the flight crew should have stopped to refuel at Miami Airport instead, which was just as close.

As a result of the above, the refuelling process took so long that staff were forced to cease working their shift, and a new crew needed to be drafted in from Miami Airport - again, a delay that would not have been an issue if we had landed at Miami initially.

Eventually, we arrived in Orlando International Airport at 09:00 local time, a full 25 hours after leaving Gatwick Airport.



Do you think we might have a case? I'm thinking that the storm at the beginning will be used to get away with fobbing us off, even though we were mostly delayed by the poor choice in refuelling airport and the new crew having to travel down.

David_e

WSoap wrote: »

Do you think we might have a case?

I'm thinking that the storm at the beginning will be used to get away with fobbing us off, even though we were mostly delayed by the poor choice in refuelling airport and the new crew having to travel down.

I think a delay of 16 hours makes it difficult for the airline. How long were you holding above Orlando, as a matter of interest?

I would have thought it would have been quicker to bus you all to Orlando.

WSoap

David_e wrote: »

I think a delay of 16 hours makes it difficult for the airline. How long were you holding above Orlando, as a matter of interest?

I would have thought it would have been quicker to bus you all to Orlando.

Thanks for the quick reply!

I'm having trouble remembering exactly, but it can't have been much longer than an hour/ hour and a half.

I did say that we arrived at West Palm Beach at midnight, but thinking about it, it was probably more like 8/9PM, as we had to disembark there and go through immigration, which took around 3 hours, as the airport was incredibly understaffed (because it's not a commercial airpot of course). Then we had to wait for the new crew to get there from Miami.

My timeline is a little fuzzy, since I was awake so long and couldn't find myself able to sleep on the plane, but that's more or less accurate.

I agree with you that it would have been quicker to be put onto a bus to Orlando, and at the time, I was confused as to why they would bus crew from Miami instead of doing that.

Vauban

Centipede100 wrote: »

Since the root cause of your delay was due to a succession of heavy storms in the Orlando area which led to lengthy delays and diversions to a large number of flights that day, I don't believe you have a valid claim to compensation IMO.

Except that the Wallentin test requires that, even in the case of extraordinary circumstances, all reasonable measures are taken to minimise the delay. Surely bussing the passengers to their destination would have been the appropriate thing to do? (It's less than two and a half hours by road)? 16 hours is a very long delay ...

David_e

WSoap wrote: »

Then we had to wait for the new crew to get there from Miami.

Miami is even closer than Orlando and they could have been sorting the crewing issue as you were being taken off the plane and going through immigration.

I think the key issue, as Vauban says, is the extent to which they did - or rather didn't - minimise the delay.

(I wonder why they didn't just land at Miami? That could have saved time.)

David_e

Centipede100 wrote: »

This would not be a claim I would be taking up unless the answers to the above leave glaring holes in the sequence of events.

The devil is always in the detail! We can only ever comment on what posters say. I said I thought it would be "difficult" for Virgin to argue - but not impossible, depending, as you say, on the full facts. Presumably if you put the reasonable questions that you pose to Virgin, they wouldn't tell you the answers however!

Virgin operate a number of popular routes from the UK to Orlando. Orlando is well known for its frequent stormy weather. (I don't know how often it prevents landings but I suspect it's not unheard of.) I would expect Virgin to have in place robust contingency plans for diversions to (what are, even by UK standards) reasonably local airports, and for getting passengers to Orlando less than 16 hours late. That, surely, was the general idea behind the Regulation.

Vauban

It's an interesting discussion. I think that, subject to illumination of further facts, David's analysis has to be right. At least in so far as the Regulation ought to work. But the 'pede's assessment is perhaps closest to the likelihood of how such a case might play out in court (which is a lottery at the best of times). Unless the DJ was sympathetic to the purpose of the Regulation AND familiar with the detail of Wallentin, this could be a hard case to win in practice ...

WSoap

Thank you all for your posts and thoughts on the subject.

Given your answers, I think I will try to proceed with a claim, although I'm not entirely confident that Virgin will do anything with it.

I do believe as a couple of you do, that the Virgin crew could have made a number of different decisions that day that would have led to our flight not being so delayed, but unfortunately the catalyst was of course the storm, which makes it difficult.

Ultimately, we lost amost a day of our holiday, and that's why I'm seeking compensation. We don't get the chance to take many holidays, so it did sting a little bit.

Ho hum. Fingers crossed. I'll be sure to keep you updated if I can.

David_e

WSoap wrote: »

Given your answers, I think I will try to proceed with a claim, although I'm not entirely confident that Virgin will do anything with it.

I suspect you are right so, if you are serious about taking them on, make your letter an NBA and don't waste time exchanging correspondence which gets you nowhere.

For what it's worth, I would make it clear that your main argument is not the weather (which, as you noted, is the root cause of the problem) but the inadequacy of the steps they took to mitigate the impact, on your arrival time, of the rerouting.

I wouldn't go so far as to say you accept the weather was an EC; just major on the mismanagement of the effect.