Flight delay compensation, all other non-EU airlines

smileychocolateface

I posted in general but realise I started a new thread (oops!) and that's not the right thing to do... So I'll try again. And many thanks in advance, this forum's just great.

I travelled from UK to Sydney the xmas before last. We left the UK a little late and - as I now understand is relatively normal - missed our connecting flight. What I discovered an hour out from Dubai is that we'd been given boarding passes for a mid-morning flight and not our connecting 1:50 flight.

I wasn't asked about this, didn't agree to this, wouldn't have chosen this, wasn't given a hotel room and was travelling with a 6 and 8 year old who hadn't slept...

We were over 10 hours late arriving in Sydney and were sent - again without our prior knowledge until I asked at the departure gate - via Bangkok! There was also a direct flight arriving in Sydney 2 hours before we did.

The original flight out of the UK was delayed as someone was ill (I understand and accept that was an unavoidable delay) but the treatment we received was not Qantas's (Emirates codeshare) using "reasonable endeavours to rebook you on the next available flight on our services at no additional cost to you" or
"alternatively, if we are unable to rebook you on services acceptable to you, we will refund the applicable fare".

As it turns out, we would have made our connecting flight (which would have been reasonable endeavour IMO) but - and this is my supposition rather than fact - as it was xmas the flights were overbooked and they decided to give the seats to someone else. We reached the gate as it said "final call" and were told the plane had left, which wasn't true (I checked the times). We didn't get on as we'd been given the wrong boarding cards and we no longer had a seat as per our confirmed ticket. We were effectively bumped without giving permission. Incidentally, my husband was offered £500 the following week to give up his seat.

Anyway, it's over a year later and it still upsets and infuriates me and any information about our chance of compensation would be helpful.

Many thanks.

Tyzap

Hello Smileychocolateface,

There is a lot of supposition and few facts but I'll pick out what I can.

I assume you were on Emirates Airlines and that you arrived at dubai less than 3 hours late?

How and why you came to be booked onto the next flight from Dubai is anyones guess. I don't think you'll get to the bottom of that one but it could have been done in good faith.

Customer service could and should have been a lot better. I'll come back to that.

Your connecting flight at Dubai is what caused the delay to Sydney. This is where is gets rather unfortunate for you because Emirates will claim that does not come under the EC261 regulations. They also rightly claim that they have never lost a court case on this point so there would be little point pursuing a claim.

I feel that the best option is to write a letter of complaint to Emirates and make a point of the poor customer service and all that resulted from it. They will probably award you a number of air miles which may be useful in the future. I would not even bother mentioning the EU regulations as they will fight that point and probably win again.

Keep your powder dry on that point for the possibility of a claim in the future, if and when there has been a test case that turns things around from their current position.

Good luck.

Vauban

Have you written to the airline for their explanation of events? You should tell them that you believe that you were involuntarily bumped and see what they say.

smileychocolateface

Thank you Vauban and Tyzap,
I did write to Emirates and they said it's Qantas's problem as they're only codeshare partners and Qantas said awfully sorry but someone was ill and it made you late so not their fault either. The CAA said (after 3 months) that no one had written back?

We were late as someone (presumably at Emirates) chose a different flight via Bangkok for us and neglected to tell us. But it's Qantas's problem as it's them we paid for the tickets and they say someone was ill.

I would give up but I'm so infuriated that my children were treated like that - me backpacking would have been almost acceptable - but small children dumped in an airport for the night for no good reason when the plane was there?! :mad: Sorry, off again. The only reason we were taken to the lounge was that we were having a very loud public breakdown (mostly me) and a manager came to take us away.

Incidentally, is it legal for an airline to remove you from a flight without telling you? I though I would have to either agree or be offered a refund?

Thank you again...

Tyzap

What were the circumstances when someone became ill? Were you boarded at the time? was it a passenger or a crew member?

smileychocolateface

Apologies, I should have said - someone from the previous flight was ill - I think a passenger and so the previous flight was late getting to us.

I didn't check my boarding passes, I mistakenly presumed they would give the boarding passes for the flights for which we were confirmed! I won't make that mistake again. The check-in person did say there was no problem with connections as she handed over the boarding passes. I only looked at them when we were an hour away from Dubai and I spoke to the cabin crew about it. They said they didn't think it should be a problem and that we would make it as we had a confirmed ticket on the 01:50 plane... So we ran through the airport and got there on time just at final call - to be told we were too late.

Tyzap

Ah okay.

I thought there may have been a possibility that you were given your boarding tickets prior to being informed or knowing of the sick passenger.

There was never any chance of you being allowed onto your original flight with the wrong boarding cards.

I think you also need to check the routing that you booked on your confirmation itinerary from when you booked your flights. You can be routed to Sydney various ways, so are you 100% sure you booked a flight that went directly from Dubai to Sydney with no stops.

I won't speculate any further than that at the moment.

smileychocolateface

Thanks again Tyzap,
I spent many hours at Trailfinders booking our route - as I was travelling alone with my boys I was very keen for things to go as smoothly as possible and not to make our journey harder than it needed to be. We were going the fastest way with no big wait at any airport. And we were definitely not going for an extra couple of hours and a long walk through Bangkok airport with all of our take on luggage with 2 boys who hadn't slept for 24 hours!
I can't remember when we told why we were late - it may have been in the UK or could have been afterwards. We weren't very late - I didn't even consider that we would miss our connection until I looked at our boarding passes.

Tyzap

If you're sure about the routing you booked with Trailfinders then there are only two possibilities as to why you were re routed.

A). They anticipated you would miss your connection at Dubai and so they re routed you.
. The flight you booked from Dubai to Sydney was overbooked so they bumped you, as you suspected.

Either way I think you should follow Vaubans advise and see what they say.

Good luck and please keep us updated with events.

hudo

This has reference to your email regarding travel on Air India.

We offer our sincere apologies for any inconvenience that you may have suffered as a consequence of the delay of your flight AI116/8TH Dec 2014
In this case, delay was due Technical Reasons which was beyond the control of Airline. For these delays which are caused due Technical Reasons there is no compensation pay-out to passengers. As per the European Regulation passengers were provided Hotel/Refreshment Vouchers for the period with 2 three minute International calls as per EC Regulation.

You will understand that in an industry such as ours there may be occasions when flights could be delayed and unavoidable. Our conditions of carriage do state that times shown are not guaranteed and form no part of our contract. All reasonable measures were taken to avoid this delay. Further, these circumstances were unforeseen and beyond our control; in particular, brought about by the impact of air traffic management and technical reasons.

With Regard to communication on the part of the airline, all display boards at Heathrow were updated and adequate staffs were positioned to answer passenger queries and this information was also delivered by our UK based call centers on passenger's phones and emails accordingly.

Please be assured that Air India regrets any inconvenience caused to its passengers by delay and that positive steps are being taken to minimize the likelihood of such delays in future.

In the event you have taken out travel insurance we will be pleased to confirm the details to them.

Assuring you of our best attention at all times.

Yours sincerely,

Air India Admin Team



What would you do? We never found out till we got to Heathrow at 10.00 (our flight was at one) also the piece of paper we had said Operational reasons.
Thanks