6 hour delay due to technical fault, Ryanair say no compensation!

blondmark

MarkBargain wrote: »

Thanks for this. Did you use form A from https://e-justice.europa.eu/content_european_payment_order_forms-156-en.do ? Is that the right one?

They may all look about the same, but you should start your claim in an English county court under the European Small Claims Procedure - Form A - HERE

They will serve it on Ryanair at Dublin Airport but the case will be dealt with in England. Don't file proceedings in Ireland because Ryanair will try to drag you into an Irish court.

Louisdf

lewroll wrote: »

Do Ryanair seriously get delayed a sufficient amount of time by 'idiots drinking in the bar/wasting time in overpriced airport shops' for them to be liable for compensation?
I am intrigued - do you have personal experience of this kind of incident?

Yes I did, a Ryanair flight was delayed by 20 minutes on the tarmac as staff had to remove their luggage from the aircraft hold. Not to mention boarding is often delayed over finding space in the lockers for everyone's trolley cases, laptop bags, handbags, coats, umbrellas, shopping purchases etc.

Louisdf

NFH wrote: »

Why should compensation be limited to the amount which you originally paid? For example, if you buy a washing machine for £300 and it explodes, causing your kitchen to catch fire, the manufacturer would be liable for the damage which would significantly exceed £300. If you think that compensation should be limited to the amount originally paid, then you don't understand the purpose of compensation, which is fundamentally different from a simple refund. Compensation is also not limited to out-of-pocket expenses; courts frequently award compensation to claimants for distress and inconvenience.

Oh yes, it's so STRESSFUL being delayed in Mallorca/somewhere else sunny. More time in the sun, how is that traumatic? It's not as if Ryanair flies to Guantanamo Bay!

NFH

Louisdf wrote: »

Oh yes, it's so STRESSFUL being delayed in Mallorca/somewhere else sunny. More time in the sun, how is that traumatic? It's not as if Ryanair flies to Guantanamo Bay!

You think that if someone is stuck in an airport for several hours, they will be enjoying themselves on the beach or in some nice hotel? What a thoroughly naïve and ignorant view. They will most probably be sitting around very bored in a small airport which is not the main airport for the destination, or equally in a UK airport waiting for their outbound flight.

jpsartre

Louisdf wrote: »

Yes I did, a Ryanair flight was delayed by 20 minutes on the tarmac as staff had to remove their luggage from the aircraft hold.

20 minutes delay doesn't entitle you to compensation so they're hardly going to go bankrupt on that account.

lewroll

Louisdf wrote: »

Yes I did, a Ryanair flight was delayed by 20 minutes on the tarmac as staff had to remove their luggage from the aircraft hold. Not to mention boarding is often delayed over finding space in the lockers for everyone's trolley cases, laptop bags, handbags, coats, umbrellas, shopping purchases etc.

And you got compensation for these 20 minutes did you? I don't think so;)

As annoying as these incidents are I don't think there is a person in the country who would expect or receive compensation for such a short space of time but the OP was referring to 6 hours I believe and that is a different matter altogether isn't ?

callum9999

blondmark wrote: »

If only it were that cheap. Ryanair charge EUR 60 to press 'print' for each passenger, so for a family of five that's an extra EUR 300.

I'm wondering whether those extremist views you're reading (about how disgusting it is that citizens dare avail themselves of their legal right to compensation) may come from one of our less evolved former colonies that don't do human rights? Chain all those greedy passengers up in Guantanamo, eh Louisdf? They won't be claiming then!

You think not being given hundreds of pounds for a 3 hour flight delay is akin to being tortured in Guantanamo Bay?

While I do agree with you - if the law says you're allowed the money, why not take it (I know I would) - the law is blatantly absurd. The key difference between Ryanair being forced to pay out hundreds in ridiculous compensation and you having to pay hundreds in boarding card charges is that you decided to fly with Ryanair and you agreed to those charges at the time of booking. Ryanair (nor surely any other airline) doesn't agree with the stupid compensation laws, they are being forced to comply with them.

In my view, the EU compensation amounts should be maximum caps based on the actual loss to the passenger, not the standard amount. For the average person, arriving back from holiday at 5pm instead of 2pm will be slightly irritating but they wouldn't actually lose anything - so why do they need hundreds of pounds? On the other hand, if you missed a days work because of it, or missed a connecting flight that you had to pay fees on etc. etc. then those compensation amounts start to look more reasonable.

callum9999

Centipede100 wrote: »

I don't believe blondmark suggested for a moment that flight delays were akin to being tortured anywhere, so your comment is misplaced.

The key is actually a rebalancing of the Contract of Carriage.

If an airline states that a passenger has to comply with conditions regarding printing a boarding pass before travel or they will face a charge of x, then by accepting the passenger entered into a contract of carriage to do just that, it is wholly justifiable that the passenger also holds the airline to that self same contract of carriage.

The passenger might not like certain aspects of the CoC but they are lawfully obliged to adhere to them. The airline similarly does not have to accept any fare paying passengers if it so chooses, but by doing so the airline has certain legal obligations to fulfil its part of the contract.

No business is forced to comply with legal obligations but pretty much all do so and accept that it is part and parcel of doing business in that sector.

Why should maximum compensation amounts be equal to the actual loss to the passenger?

The potential liability that can arise when you enter into a contract is not directly related to what you get for the contract.
For example, you sell a bag of peanuts for £0.50 Somebody dies eating your peanuts: you could be liable for tens or hundreds of thousands of pounds. The fact that you only paid £0.50 has strictly no relevance to the issue.

The reason why you end up with compensation is because the airline did not fly the aircraft as specified in the contract. You may wish to say: well, this is not the airline's fault here. And you would be right. But one thing is common: this remains true whether you paid £5 for your flight or £5000. This, it seems to me, makes the irrelevance of what you paid for your flight clear.

While it is right that it is not the airline's fault, neither is it the passenger's. Ultimately, it is a question of risk allocation: who shall bear the risk/cost resulting from delayed performance of the contract when the delay is the fault of no-one? Left to market forces, the risk is systematically allocated to the passenger: the airline says: not my problem. That is to be expected since it is the airlines that decide where the risk shall be allocated, not the passenger.

Now, some people think that this is OK and that market forces are the best solution. Others would argue that relying on market forces, when there is an obvious structural imbalance in bargaining power between the parties to the contract is not OK and can lead to 'market failures'. That is pretty much the raison d'être of most consumer protection legislation.

So what the Regulation does is to shift part of the risk back to the airline rather than allowing the airline to shift all the risk onto the passenger.

They obviously didn't genuinely mean it, but it's what they wrote... I didn't just randomly bring up Guantanamo for no apparent reason!

The key difference being, the passenger willingly agrees to those charges, the airline is being forced to abide by these charges by law (your claim that businesses have the "option" to choose whether to follow the law or not is ridiculously absurd...) - with their only option being to either relocate outside of the EU and stop flying to the EU or close down, both of which are obviously unfeasible.

And stop going on about "risk allocation" etc. - it's utterly irrelevant. Your peanut analogy also isn't remotely relevant. There is an ENORMOUS difference between your product killing or injuring someone and an aircraft being delayed by a few hours - the two situations are not remotely comparable. As I quite clearly said, if there was a financial loss because of the delay then compensation for that is reasonable. Being handed an arbitrary amount of money for a situation that is merely mildly annoying and has no financial repercussions on you is not.

2sides2everystory

The almost random use of bold and capitals in that last post is rather telling. Taken together I think it spells frustration at losing an argument

I think Centipede100's pointers on risk allocation are spot on.

Corporates like Ryanair may not be permitted to actually govern their operational environment. They may of course seek to optimise their response to it in legitimate ways. But governing is for government i.e. we the people via our elected representatives

Ryanair is infamous for treating its passengers like Pavlov's dog by its systems of constantly changing stimulants with rare sweeteners and frequent punishments. It is certainly only fair that we via the rule of law imposed by our governments are able when necessary to redress the balance a bit by firmly coaxing Ryanair to conform with the reasonableness we travellers choose via the legislation we vote for ...

Contrary to what has just been suggested, Ryanair could indeed pack up its toy set and go play elsewhere if it doesn't like it (big airlines are nothing but a here today logo on a fleet plus a website which may be gone tomorrow). Meantime if Ryanair wishes to command all the privileges it does as an EU airline (e.g. tax-free aviation fuel as its prime resource, along with easy free-trade access to EU airports and cheap labour from any part of the EU it chosses?) then it may not fraudulently continue to evade paying EU261 compensation according to the law.

We simply don't need Ryanair. It needs us and we are fast becoming clever buyers of our travel experience. We don't need to protect Ryanair. They are big and they are truly ugly.

I USE RYANAIR constantly {note non-random use of bold and capitals} and I thoroughly recommend others do too

For my European summer break this year I shall not be using Ryanair or Easyjet or BA as they are all too expensive. That they should be so expensive during what they call "peak" periods simply means that as a function of the ignorance of their main markets, at least in the case of the lo cost outfits, airlines are still actively able to exploit infrequent flyers who are principally summer buyers only.

Those are the punters still learning the ropes, who get taken in by the way the herd is manipulated, and who perhaps have not learned yet how to find the better deals or how to press home their claims for compensation. But they will, maybe not this year, but soon.

So Ryanair will need to change and grow up if it wishes to continue to dip its snout in the easy pickings of the EU summer business.

A quick look at Stansted at the moment shows how Ryanair sees it. They don't give a damn about delays until the risk allocation mechanism kicks in at 3 hours. The place is littered with maybe 15 or 20 spare aircraft poised for stepping off the grass and onto the airport proper for the summer market but none are readied to alleviate winter delays. {note again the exceptionally judicious / non-random use of bold and italics}

callum9999

2sides2everystory wrote: »

The almost random use of bold and capitals in that last post is rather telling. Taken together I think it spells frustration at losing an argument

I think Centipede100's pointers on risk allocation are spot on.

Corporates like Ryanair may not be permitted to actually govern their operational environment. They may of course seek to optimise their response to it in legitimate ways. But governing is for government i.e. we the people via our elected representatives

Ryanair is infamous for treating its passengers like Pavlov's dog by its systems of constantly changing stimulants with rare sweeteners and frequent punishments. It is certainly only fair that we via the rule of law imposed by our governments are able when necessary to redress the balance a bit by firmly coaxing Ryanair to conform with the reasonableness we travellers choose via the legislation we vote for ...

Contrary to what has just been suggested, Ryanair could indeed pack up its toy set and go play elsewhere if it doesn't like it (big airlines are nothing but a here today logo on a fleet plus a website which may be gone tomorrow). Meantime if Ryanair wishes to command all the privileges it does as an EU airline (e.g. tax-free aviation fuel as its prime resource, along with easy free-trade access to EU airports and cheap labour from any part of the EU it chosses?) then it may not fraudulently continue to evade paying EU261 compensation according to the law.

We simply don't need Ryanair. It needs us and we are fast becoming clever buyers of our travel experience. We don't need to protect Ryanair. They are big and they are truly ugly.

I USE RYANAIR constantly {note non-random use of bold and capitals} and I thoroughly recommend others do too

For my European summer break this year I shall not be using Ryanair or Easyjet or BA as they are all too expensive. That they should be so expensive during what they call "peak" periods simply means that as a function of the ignorance of their main markets, at least in the case of the lo cost outfits, airlines are still actively able to exploit infrequent flyers who are principally summer buyers only.

Those are the punters still learning the ropes, who get taken in by the way the herd is manipulated, and who perhaps have not learned yet how to find the better deals or how to press home their claims for compensation. But they will, maybe not this year, but soon.

So Ryanair will need to change and grow up if it wishes to continue to dip its snout in the easy pickings of the EU summer business.

A quick look at Stansted at the moment shows how Ryanair sees it. They don't give a damn about delays until the risk allocation mechanism kicks in at 3 hours. The place is littered with maybe 15 or 20 spare aircraft poised for stepping off the grass and onto the airport proper for the summer market but none are readied to alleviate winter delays. {note again the exceptionally judicious / non-random use of bold and italics}

How pathetic... The use of bold wasn't "random", it was used to emphasise the words...

If you think it's remotely feasible for an airline to pack up shop and leave the continent (especially the likes of Ryanair where 100% of their flights go to/from EU countries) then you are an absolute moron. Of course it's physically possible, but it's no less logical than telling the British poor to "shut up moaning and move to Ethiopia - stuff is cheaper there".

My post also had very little to do with Ryanair, so your rant is rather meaningless. Although allegedly I'm the one whose "lost the argument" - I haven't seen a single logical reason in this post that explains why someone who is delayed by 3 hours and doesn't suffer any financial loss deserves to be given €300. (And contrary to your claim, I personally find the long and ranty posts with very little relevant content in them to be more telling of someone who has "lost the argument"...).