Flight delay and cancellation compensation, KLM/AF ONLY

Vauban

pichon wrote: »

My husband and I were flying from Asia via Paris to London Heathrow in April this year. The first leg departed two hours late, which resulted in our missing the connecting flight in Paris.

...

I don't know what to make of this reply from AF.
Do I have chance in taking this further? I don't know what technical issues caused the delay and whether this is a result of a poor maintenance. Has anyone received similar offer of unspecified amount of "bonus miles"? I read through the entire AF/KLM thread, but I don't think I came across a story of a similar offer.

I would appreciate your knowledgeable advice.
Thank you very much.

You seem to have a pretty solid case to me. Technical failures are not extraordinary - even if the plane is maintained appropriately! Write then a Notice Before Action letter giving them 14 days to settle, and then start proceedings.

sgr44

Asbogirl wrote: »

Hello, brand new forumite (but long time reader/follower of MSE).
Anyone else experiencing such delay (which is significantly, and somewhat ironically, longer than the flight delay)?

I submitted my claim to KLM at the end of December and after several months of to-ing and fro-ing from them replying to each of my emails informing me my claim was "still under investigation". I sent them an NBA last month and after their last reply I informed them I would give them another 28 days before going to the small claims court. It seems like they are just acknowledging my emails in the hope that I eventually give up!

pichon

Vauban wrote: »

You seem to have a pretty solid case to me. Technical failures are not extraordinary - even if the plane is maintained appropriately! Write then a Notice Before Action letter giving them 14 days to settle, and then start proceedings.

Thanks Vauban. I went on to send another email saying that if the company plans to make defense under "extraordinary" category, then please provide me with more details on what how extraordinary the circumstance was, as technical issues are not necessarily extraordinary as the ECJ rulings suggest.

In the response, they failed to provide me with any further details on what the nature of technical problem was and continued to just say that it was extraordinary. I have no way to find out what the real problem was other than it was "technical" as the announcement and the correspondences said.

They credited 3000 bonus miles following the first correspondence, and are offering either additional 3000 miles or 40 EUR in voucher. I don't think it is anywhere near what I'm entitled to. But there is no way for me to find out whether the technical issues that caused 4+ hour delay was extraordinary or not. I don't know what is the best way to go.

Sinhanada

I booked my flights from Manchester to Johannesburg using Lastminute.com.

We flew fine from Manchester and arrived in France to find our flight had been cancelled and we were put onto another flight the next day. We were also given a hotel voucher and a meal voucher for our troubles. The only problem being our meal voucher expired at 22:00 and we had 15 minutes to find the restaurant at the other side of the airport. The meal choice was extremely poor and the staff the most unfriendly I have ever encountered. The hotel itself was supposed to be a short bus ride with regular busses to and from it. We finally arrived at the hotel at 01:00 the next morning and had to leave the next morning at 05:00.

I emailed Air France when I landed at Johannesburg and requested compensation. I was offered a £70 flight voucher for the two flights and an apology as the flight was cancelled due to technical reasons. I rejected the offer and requested the 600Euro compensation thanks to watching one of Martin's programmes on the BBC. They have replied saying that I am due the compensation and that they would process this for me.

All in all two emails, and I will have more than 50% of my flight refunded.

Thank you very much Martin Lewis. I can honestly say that you have provided great advice!:T:T:T:T

mrsyorkie

Wow, well done! What date was your flight? Only asking cos our flight from Paris to jo'burg was cancelled and had to get the one the next day but they say the technical reasons aren't covered. Our flight was on the 15th June

pichon

Sinhanada wrote: »

I emailed Air France when I landed at Johannesburg and requested compensation. I was offered a £70 flight voucher for the two flights and an apology as the flight was cancelled due to technical reasons. I rejected the offer and requested the 600Euro compensation thanks to watching one of Martin's programmes on the BBC. They have replied saying that I am due the compensation and that they would process this for me.

All in all two emails, and I will have more than 50% of my flight refunded.

Thank you very much Martin Lewis. I can honestly say that you have provided great advice!:T:T:T:T

Wow, congratulations and good job! I'm in the process of dealing with this, and I've sent my third email a few days ago and am waiting for their response. Fingers crossed.

Sinhanada

My flight was cancelled on the 2nd August - they cited technical issues and offered me 70Euro flight vouchers first. I thanked them for the offer and stated that in line with EU regulations I was entitled to 600Euros as technical issues do not merit extraordinary circumstances. I did not use any standard templates but was firm fair and polite.

I think that is how they have offered me the compensation. Just out of interest though, do you have a copy of the email they sent you regarding why the flight was cancelled?

ap1986

Hi All,

Just thought I'd post in here. Late last night I got a text from a spamming company about claiming compensation for delayed flights. Obviously I wasn't going to reply but it got me thinking...

Back in 2008, I had a flight with Air France flying from Heathrow to Brisbane via Paris and Singapore.

The flight out of Heathrow, to Paris, was delayed for about an hour (I think?! - can't quite remember) and they didn't give a reason.

I thought nothing of it really, the flight was only an hour or so and, according to the hostess, they'd land us in the correct terminal for my connection to Singapore so I wouldn't risk any further delays. This was repeated 3 or 4 times both face to face and over the tannoy on the flight.

So, I land in Paris, I can't remember exactly how late the landing was. The air hostess made an annoucement before the passengers disembarked saying that there would be someone to meet passengers for all connecting flights, to escort us to the correct terminal. I wasn't too worried because I'd been told that we'd land in the same terminal so I left the plane, in a rush but not in a panic.

There was no airport or airline representative waiting for us as I left the plane so didn't even know which direction to take. This is where I got a bit panicky. I asked one of the other reps where I needed to go and no one could understand me, although just asking 'Which gate for Singapore' didn't seem like it was too difficult.

After what seemed like an eternity, a few more people noticed that they didn't know where to go either but they'd started rushing to somewhere so I just followed. Turned out, we had to run through an airport for (no exaggeration) 30 mins to find the gate we needed to. As we got to the security gate, the one just before boarding, the security officer started waving her hands in front of her saying 'No, flight has gone'. Great!

Anyway, after spending an hour at the desk arguing with the poor staff, I realised that I wouldn't be going anywhere that night. There were about 30 of us, all in all, who had been on that flight from Heathrow and subsequently missed the connection. At that point, we all got talking. Every single one of us who was then travelling on to Brisbane (some ended their trip in Singapore) had seat numbers on the leg from Singapore to Brisbane printed on their tickets (these were all printed at Heathrow) although nothing on the tickets for the Paris to Singapore leg. Maybe a conspiracy theory but didn't really seem right.

I was told that the next flight would be 24 hrs later, that they would put me up in a hotel, that I'd be able to eat there etc and that they were very sorry.

So, I made my way to the Hotel. I was then kicked out at (read: asked to check out by) 11am the next morning which would've been fine, if my flight wasn't at 11pm that night.

Anyway, the Paris public transport workers were on strike (surprisingly) that day so couldn't go and waste some time in Paris, I literally had to kill 12hrs in an airport!

I hadn't eaten since the day before, dispite being told I could eat at the hotel, I couldn't get anything the night before and it was actually cheaper to eat in the airport than the hotel so off I went.

Longest 12 hours EVER!!!!!

After a few hours, a few people from the night before appeared. All with about 50euros worth of food vouchers... I had been given none! I was sooooo annoyed, as you can imagine...

Ok, so... 10pm arrives, my gate flashes up on the screen. I go to the gate. 10.15pm the time of my flight had been delayed for 30 mins. 10.30pm, another 15 mins added onto my wait time. 10.45pm, yet another 15 minutes added. By the time I got to board my flight, it was 12am, I think we'd taken off by about 1am by I was so tired by then, I was asleep!

Luckily, I didn't miss any further flights and arrived in Brisbane safe and sound, albeit, a day late. Luckily I was staying with family so I had no problems with hotels etc.

Sorry for the long post but, do you think I have a claim here? I complained at the time and was fobbed off with 'have £100 off your next flight with us and here's your reimbursment for the food you bought in the airport' - I haven't flown with them since and I don't intend to so have never used the discount.

Thanks all!

freeof1

Hairy_Hogg wrote: »

Hi all, I am currently in 'negotiation' with Air France.

August 2010 I had a flight from London - Paris - Bogota and then a return a week later on the same route, all business class.

There was a delay on the Paris to Bogota route on the way out as follows:

"flight delayed by 3 hours and 29 minutes after the aircraft returned to the parking stand due a technical issue with the angle of attack probe. A further delay was caused by the flight deck crew having reached the statutory work deadline and no alternative crew was available to operate the flight."

However Air France are saying "In both cases the crew had performed all the necessary checks and the aircraft were cleared to depart. The problems occurred shortly after the aircraft had pushed back from the stand and were therefore unexpected and entirely unforeseen. These are not situations where we can offer compensation according to EU Regulation 261"

On the way home the flight from Bogota to Paris was cancelled due to:

"returned to the parking stand shortly after pushback from the terminal after a problem of overheating was discovered in one of the engines"

They did not have the correct part to fix it so we were sent to a hotel and returned to the airport 24 hours later to get a flight, however we negotiated a flight via AF with Iberia as we were not sure they would fix the flight.

So far I have been offered a €600 flight voucher for the 24hour delayed return (as an act of good will as 'We confirm that the circumstances which caused this delay are considered 'extraordinary' according to the European Union regulation. As a result, I must respectfully decline your request to pay compensation. ') to use within 12 months. I went back and said I was not happy and would like a partial refund of the ticket price but was told that as I had accepted an alternative flight that would not happen however they would also credit 30,000 miles to my account

I have just gone back to them stating that I would like my compensation which I believe to €600 + €300 for the two times delay as a minimum please. All very civil and polite.

Am I on the right track please? Can I insist on cash not flight vouchers and should I also pursue the cost of the return ticket?

TIA for any pointers.

Hi,

I'm wondering if you've had any success with your claim. I had a AF flight from Bogota to Paris cancelled for exactly the same reason as your flight (overheating engine - in fact the phrases you cite from AF were found verbatim in the email I received), albeit a year after yours, and am in the process of claiming compensation from Air France.

I do not see that their argument that an engine overheating is an extraordinary circumstance will hold any weight, firstly because intuition says that it's a circumstance that is probably quite ordinary when it comes to the cancelling of flights due to technical issues, and secondly because of the judgement in the case of Wallentin-Hermann vs Alitalia that more clearly lays out what could constitute an extraordinary circumstance.

I am fine taking the matter to court if needs be, although would be encouraging to hear if AF agreed to paying your claim to compensation without having to go to court.

Nnenne

Dear Ms .......

Thank you for your recent message.

On the 30th of April the flight left Port Harcourt ahead of time at 20:29 at arrived in Abuja at 21:20.

In Abuja, an unexpected technical problem with the fuel indicator was discovered, and the flight was delayed by 91 minutes, leaving at 00:51 and arriving in Paris Charles de Gaulle at 7:18 on the 1st of May.

As previously communicated, the incident causing the delay in Abuja was “extraordinary and unpredictable”, as it presented itself halfway through the journey, and therefore it is not covered by the European Regulation.

We would like once again to apologise for any inconvenience caused you, however, we believe we have dealt with your claim appropriately and in accordance with our company’s policy and we now consider this matter closed.

Yours sincerely,

E. Vergani

Customer Care Europe




They offered £30 voucher which I've rejected. We were supposed to land at 7.30am but Langland at 11.10am. Please help, do I have a case? This is with air france. I know this is covered by the EU because its a European airline and I was travelling from Nigeria to London via air france. Thanks