Flight delay and cancellation compensation, Virgin Atlantic ONLY

Ich_2

Delayed arrival time 7 minutes under three hours. Does that mean straight off there is no claim here?

It does without doubt

MMF007

We put in a claim for our 24 hour delay Barbados to Manc Dec 2008. VA have sent reply referring to a flight from orlando (never been there) with an excuse about a service vehicle hitting plane so they had to 'rearrange the fleet' leading to several delays - extraordinary circs. So I am about to point out their error relating to which flight we were on and to ask for flight log for our BGI-Manc. We both lost a day's work which is why I was particularly peeved at the time and they could have put us on one of the many flights to Gatwick and got us back in time for work but they chose not to pay out for that so we will be pursuing via MCOL if necessary (have already got on-line gov gateway password so it's really quick and easy to do).

Anyone else got a response about VS0078 21 Dec 2008 - what was it?

moments_of_sanity

We had the usual response from Virgin so now need to send another letter giving them 14 days and thought I would ask if anyone has one before I reinvent the wheel?

iereboy

Hi,

Am new on this particular board. Please bear with me.

Thank you to all the previous posters -there is a lot of information. I have read them all. A big thank you to especially Centipede.

My time line so far:

Submitted EU claim printed from VA website : 10th April
Claim acknowledged : 19th April
Claim denied : 1 May


Denied due to:

"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 following an unexpected problem with the aircraft on arrival into Tobago. A fire warning had caused the fire extinguishers to automatically deploy in the forward hold. The aircraft could not be made serviceable within the crew's legal operating hours, causing the aircraft to be delayed overnight in Tobago.

Technical problems stemming from events which by their nature or origin are not inherent in the normal exercise of our flying activity and are beyond our actual control. i.e mechanical discrepancies outside of the standard manufacturer's maintenance manual are exempt from compensation.

As this event could neither have been foreseen or anticipated no compensation is due. In addition, the cost of the resources and equipment required to eliminate this delay would have been unreasonable."


So what is my next step exactly?

Is it:


1)"CAA Template letter Standard claim letter to initiate a claim" ( I don't think its this one as I have already initiated and they have rejected)

OR

2)"After denial of your claim, issue 14 days notice of Court Action" (I think its this one)


Thank you for your time.

zippy99

I sent my original letter in December and in March I received a reply claiming extraordinary circumstances (flight to Florida - should have departed 1pm and left the following day at 8am):

In your particular case, the delay was caused brand unexpected fault with the aircraft due to operate your flight. Due to the nature of this fault, which could not have been predicted or prevented, the aircraft required extensive engineering work before it could operate.

Unlike other replies - I found their response very standard with no detail at all and feel they have thus far provided no basis for a claim of extraordinary circumstances as they have not even said what the problem is.

I sent an NBA on 12th April (recorded delivery) I can see that this item has been signed for on 15th yet no response within the 14 days.

I now wish to take the next step and start the legal proceeding - try as I might I cannot find a guide on how to do this. I would appreciate any one posting a link to the relevant section.

Many thanks

zippy99

I have been through that page and actually used your template letter for the NBA with my own additions. But I could not ascertain how to go about creating a small claim

I have set up a MCOL account (as I saw someone else had mentioned that) but am doing this a bit blind - I was going to do the work on this tonight but wanted to know what to expect and how the claims procedure worked.

I apologise if my previous post made me look stupid and left me open to ridicule given - however I had looked and could not find the answer I needed hence my post.

Vauban

zippy99 wrote: »

I have been through that page and actually used your template letter for the NBA with my own additions. But I could not ascertain how to go about creating a small claim

I have set up a MCOL account (as I saw someone else had mentioned that) but am doing this a bit blind - I was going to do the work on this tonight but wanted to know what to expect and how the claims procedure worked.

I apologise if my previous post made me look stupid and left me open to ridicule given - however I had looked and could not find the answer I needed hence my post.

Zippy,

Have a look for the "Taking the Airlines to Court" thread, which I'll try to bump up. There are some good links in there. This Court business is new to most of us. But with a bit of time and effort - and help from folk like Centipede - we are getting there!

Vauban

Joolz2308

Joolz2308 wrote: »

So I did my letter before action and they didn't reply within 14 days. Duly lodged my claim with MCOL on 27th March and received an acknowledgement of service on 8th April saying they intended to defend the whole of the claim.

Then on Saturday, I received letter from them:

"I was concerned to hear that you've brought a claim against us for delay to your flight. Obviously, we hate to end up in this situation with our customers, and I'm sorry that you felt upset enough about this to bring a legal claim.

We see no value in disputes of this nature with our passengers and as such would like to settle it for you. So as a gesture of goodwill, I have pleasure in enclosing a cheque for £1646 in full and final settlement of any claim.

I'm sorry once again that things have come to this, and I'm pleased we've been able to settle things amicably."

So to say I'm over the moon would be an understatement. Many, many thanks to you all at moneysavingexpert - I wouldn't have done it without you.

:T:beer::j

Further to the above, I received a letter yesterday from Virgin thanking me for my EU Compensation Form and letting me know that they have declined my claim on the grounds of "extraordinary circumstances"!!!!

Cheque has been cashed and cleared so I don't intend taking any notice of the letter.

Seems to me that they have two sections, one dealing with the EU Forms and fobbing people off and the other dealing with court actions and they obviously don't speak to each other!

J

IanHarris

After reviewing my rejection letter from Virgin due to Extraordinary Circumstances and studying the excellent links and feedback on this thread am I correct in thinking that quoting a problem with the belly fairing panel on the previous flight as extraordinary circumstances should not apply to my flight (VS016 26/Oct/2008) that was effectively delayed as a consequence of the fault rather than being caused by the fault itself?

The Finnair Oyj v Timy Lassooy Case C-22/11, at point 37, states that;
" In addition, it is apparent from recital 15 in the preamble to Regulation No 261/2004 that ‘extraordinary circumstances’ may relate only to ‘a particular aircraft on a particular day’, which cannot apply to a passenger denied boarding because of the rescheduling of flights as a result of extraordinary circumstances affecting an earlier flight".

If this is the case, do I just need to respond to Virgin quoting the above as part of an NBA and await my cheque within the next few weeks or should I look to try and add further clauses from the judgements on the basis that they will try and wriggle their way out of things again?

Also, has anyone tried claiming interest on the compensation payments relative to when the flight occurred or are payments strictly capped at €600?

zippy99

Many thanks for the advice.

Will plough on - just need to find out the best address to use for Virgin for the claim - I presume it will be their registered office.

I still find it odd that Virgin did not give any detail of the fault and what was so extraordinary about it.

Going to do the MCOL tonight with my husband.