Flight delay and cancellation compensation, Virgin Atlantic ONLY

Justice13075

If your flight was with Virgin and the cancellation was less than 14 days notice and the cancellation wasn't due to extraordinary circumstances Virgin owe you €600 per passenger. It is Virgins responsibility to notify you of the cancellation not Thomas Cook, Virgin can deal with Thomas cook. What did Thomas Cook offer you £300 in travel vouchers for? They are under no obligation to pay you. How did you get back? If you had to book with another airline Virgin will also have to refund you for the cancelled flight

Timothea

Interestingly, your case is similar to mine. I am pretty sure you are also due US denied-boarding compensation if you had a valid ticket and a confirmed reservation issued by an airline or a travel agent. IT problems are not a valid excuse. Please see this thread for more information:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5547492

asheilio

A Further Update

Hi [removed]

Thank you for your email.

With regards to the reimbursement for the amount $[removed]
We will accept the amount offered only as reimbursement for additional expenses we incurred as a result of our flight delay which was caused entirely by Virgin Atlantic's incompetence.
Furthermore, acceptance of this offer does not affect our legal right to seek compensation in accordance with Regulation (EC) No 261/2004 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 February 2004.

Kind Regards,
[removed]

Dear [removed],

Thank you for your EU Claim application.

Unfortunately, the details you have provided do not match up with our records. The [removed] from JFK to London Heathrow on the [removed] 2017 was not delayed and in fact arrived 18 minutes ahead of schedule.

Therefore, in the first instance we will be rejecting your claim. If you have any further information regarding the delay you suffered, please feel free to get back in touch and we will be happy to investigate further. Perhaps it was a different flight under a separate booking reference?

I hope you have a lovely day.
Yours sincerely
[removed]

Dear [removed]

Thank you for your email.

Unfortunately the progress being made on this matter is not acceptable.

Please see the attached document which I have attached numerous times already to numerous virgin staff members. If you read it you will see that we were denied boarding and therefore my party and I were delayed for 23 hours before flying and I am seeking compensation under EU Regulation 261/2004 for this flight.

Yours frustratingly,
[removed]

To whom it may concern

Please provide an update on the progress being made regarding my flight claim. I have not had any response following my email sent on [removed]

Thank you in advance for your response.
Regards,
[removed]

Dear [removed]

Thank you for your EU Claim Application. I'm sorry for the delay in getting back to you.

Having fully investigated and reviewed your details, I can confirm that we have now had correspondence with Delta confirming they are at fault for the error with your booking. They have advised me that they will be reviewing your claim and so they should be in touch with you very soon.

Once again, I am truly sorry for the upset and inconvenience caused to you on this occasion. Please rest assured this has been fed back to the relevant managers to be looked into internally. I sincerely hope we have the pleasure of welcoming you onboard again soon.

Kind Regards,
[removed]

Dear [removed]

Thank you for your email.

It is regrettable that it has taken 29 days for you to provide me with an update to my issue, even after I sent a further email requesting an update on [removed]

My lawyer has asked that you please provide me with more information regarding the cause of the issue that resulted in our party missing our flight and the reasons why DELTA have claimed responsibility?

Please be aware that under EU Regulation 261/2004 the "operating air carrier" of the flight (in this case Virgin Atlantic) is liable for compensation.

Therefore I am requesting you (Virgin Atlantic) to continue to process my claim for compensation that I and my party are due under EU Regulation 261/2004.

Kind regards,
[removed]

Dear [removed]

Thank you for your further email. I appreciate there has been a delay in us getting back to you and I hope you can accept my sincerest apologies for this. I can understand how disappointing this has been for you.

As we have previously advised under reference [removed], our flight did operated as scheduled. Therefore, there has been no disruption to your journey caused by Virgin Atlantic. Since we received your original email, we have been trying to clarify with Delta exactly what happened on their side. There has been much confusion regarding this and so, as we were not getting a clear answer, I agreed to reimburse your expenses, rather than have you wait for Delta to decipher what went wrong.

When coming across your EU claim, I contacted Delta again and had this escalated due to the previous confusion. They have now confirmed to me that the error was on their part and when you checked in for your flight with Delta, they cancelled your Virgin Atlantic flight out of the system. This is what caused the error and why you were unable to travel. Again, to save you having to wait for Delta to correspond with you, and to avoid further upset and inconvenience to you both, I have arranged for EU compensation for denied boarding in the total amount of £2053.78. This has been converted on [removed], rate of exchange 1USD = 0.760656GBP.

This payment will be made to the bank account details you provide via the link below. By submitting your bank details to us, you agree to distribute the compensation in accordance with the wishes of the passengers listed below.

[removed]

We want to make sure you receive the payment that’s due to you as soon as possible. To arrange this, please click on the link below to go to your profile where you can enter your bank details.

[removed]

Kind Regards,
[removed]

asheilio

Anyone care to speculate why they are offering more than the maximum compensation rate? €1200 was what we were expecting.

While the error may have been with Delta, it is my understanding that Virgin as the 'operating carrier', are ultimately responsible for compensation regarding this EU regulation. As timothea posted above, I may also have a route to go down against DELTA too for their part in this.

Thanks above for the help, I would have given up long ago without the advice on this site.

Tyzap

Great result, you persevered and got your reward.

Well done asheilio:beer:

They seem to have made a complete mess of the calculation.

Timothea

asheilio wrote: »

Anyone care to speculate why they are offering more than the maximum compensation rate? €1200 was what we were expecting.

It looks like they applied the EUR-GBP exchange rate the wrong way, and then did the same for the USD-GBP exchange rate, which isn't even relevant?? I would just keep quiet and see what they actually pay you. Some account may spot the error.

JPears

bumped to tidy board

silvercar

I wonder if you can pass your collective wisdom to a thread that was accidentally posted on the wrong board:

minnie2 wrote:

Hi has anyone claimed money back and what happened?

I applied months ago to virgin and have been constantly requesting a response as they said within 28days and this was in may.i even received an email asking for feedback on the service even though i hadnt even had any service as yet.

Anyway just received a response that says the plane had a fuel leak so my claims been rejected because it was a fuel leak and they couldnt have a crew waiting or something . Is this valid? Has anyone else had the same

Background the plane was delayed for 3/4hours on they way there as it had problems we didnt claim for that but on the way back we had the same plane and were delayed for over 24hours.we had to have food tokens and change of hotel etc

Shall i leave it or appeal? I can copy their response if it would help.

minnie2 wrote:

We regret to advise that we have declined your claim on the grounds that the cause of the delay was caused by extraordinary circumstances which were beyond the actual control of Virgin Atlantic and which could not have been avoided even if all reasonable measures had been taken.

In your particular case the flight was delayed because of an unexpected technical issue on the aircrafts previous sector, which was flying from London Gatwick to Las Vegas to operate the VS44 the same day.

The aircraft encountered an engine pylon fuel leak prior to departure. This was completely unexpected because the aircraft had not shown indications of this problem on previous sectors. Our engineers made several attempts to rectify the problem, but the fix proved to be quite complex and took longer than expected to resolve.

It would be an intolerable sacrifice for us to keep a contingency of stand by crew and flight deck as well as spare aircraft at all of our outstations in the event of such a rare occurrence.

Tyzap

Hi Silvercar/minnie2,

You have a perfectly valid claim, they are trying to fob you off.

A fuel leak is just another technical fault. Technical faults are not an excuse for the airline to refuse compensation.

Google and then download 'Vaubans guide' for all the info you need.

Good luck.

minnie2

Thank you tyzap i thought it was a bit odd their response but i have no idea if it was valid or not.it was a really rubbish end to our holiday.the hotel we were sent to didnt have a clue either we had to wait around for hours in their lobby. We got a piece of paper about air miles because they messed up so i know they know it was their fault. And i didnt understand how they can say it was extraordinary circumstances beyond their controls when they had had probs with the same plane 10days earlier.they could have got us another plane.

Will that guide tell me what i should respond back with? This is first ever thing ive done like this and am pretty clueless.