Compensation for delayed flights Discussion Area

DJFearRoss

Next course of action?

Following my 'much' earlier post;
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/41285878#Comment_41285878

I have now heard back from the Civil aviation authority in Spain (AESA) who I contacted regarding the reply from Ryanair, they state that the, "delay invoked by the company, would not constitute extraordinary circumstances..... Accordingly, the air carrier should pay you compensation for the amount of 250 Euro per passeger...."

The letter is dated 05/10/11, not long ago I admit and i've not heard from Ryanair. The letter does state that a copy has been sent to Ryanair as well. My question is, what is my next course of action? It doesn't state what I have to do. Do I need to contact Ryanair again or do I need to sit and wait for ... something. Any help would be appreciated.

richardw

Write to Ryanair, with a copy of the AESA letter, asking for your compensation.

paula40ok

paula40ok wrote: »

I worked and saved hard for my 1st trip abroad in June 2011 to Jamaica as a close friend was getting married there. Our flight was due to leave Gatwick at 10.10am. I was nervous about flying and having boarded the aircraft and seated for nearly 2 hours, was informed of a technical fault with the plane and all the passengers were removed from the plane; I was even more nervous. There were a lot of unhappy folks including small babies, children and elderly folk. Thomas Cook failed to keep us informed of what was going on and it was a fellow passenger who managed to get a friend back at home to contact Thomas Cook and he called back to say there was a serious fault with the engine and that they were waiting for a flight to come in from Turkey and that aircraft would then fly us to our holiday destination. We eventually departed Gatwick for Montego Bay, Jamaica at 20.45pm; yes, that's 10 hours and 35 minutes late! It wasn't until we spoke to fellow passengers that there were differences in the amount of meal vouchers people recieved, from £15 to £50 depending on whether passengers were aware of what they were entitled to. Apart from that, at no point did Thomas Cook offer to refund anyone after 5 hours of delay if they wished to cancel their holiday. I think I would have seriously considered it as I was very nervous and felt nauseous with fear. Since my return, I was informed that my holiday insurance does not pay out for delays of less than 12 hours. I contacted Thomas Cook as I felt I should be compensated for the delay as I lost 1 day of my 14 day vacation. I have had no response from Thomas Cook as I wrote to them within 28 days of returning from my holiday and have since contacted the CAA and they at least have responded to my complaint within 2 days and informed me to send all relevant documents and I plan to do so at my earliest convenienceand pursue this claim. Yes, I appreciate that I did eventually travel on a plane fit for purpose and arrived to my destination safely but Thomas Cook have a responsibility, once they have taken my hard earned cash, to deliver a best a service and I feel that they didn't. My complaint is that having realised there was a major fault with the plane after 2 hours, how does it then take them so long to decide to bring in another aircraft? And Thomas Cook should at the very least have kept the entire group informed about what was going on. Shame on you, Thomas Cook! I will never travel with them again.

I got an email from the Civil Aviation Authority, this week, saying that they would not be able to take up my claim with the airline, given the current position with the ECJ review, as airlines are currently not compelled to pay compensation for delays in the UK. They also explain that airlines generally do not accept liability for any consequential losses, such as the loss of your first day of the holiday, arising from the delay, unless they are required to do so as a result of court action. It's my reckoning that airlines have been given the green light to take our hard earned cash but are not obliged to deliver exactly what it is the customers are paying for as long as the airline can prove that the delay was caused by "extraordinary circumstances". Surely the airlines will blame every delay on extraordinary circumstances.

richardw

paula40ok wrote: »

Surely the airlines will blame every delay on extraordinary circumstances.

Yes, they do but Rectials 14 and 15 of http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:32004R0261:EN:HTML

say

(14) As under the Montreal Convention, obligations on operating air carriers should be limited or excluded in cases where an event has been caused by extraordinary circumstances which could not have been avoided even if all reasonable measures had been taken. Such circumstances may, in particular, occur in cases of political instability, meteorological conditions incompatible with the operation of the flight concerned, security risks, unexpected flight safety shortcomings and strikes that affect the operation of an operating air carrier.

(15) Extraordinary circumstances should be deemed to exist where the impact of an air traffic management decision in relation to a particular aircraft on a particular day gives rise to a long delay, an overnight delay, or the cancellation of one or more flights by that aircraft, even though all reasonable measures had been taken by the air carrier concerned to avoid the delays or cancellations.

and refer to all reasonable measures, in many cases the airline will blame 'extraordinary circumstances' but may not be able to detail reasonable measures taken.

DJFearRoss

I got an email from the Civil Aviation Authority, this week, saying that they would not be able to take up my claim with the airline, given the current position with the ECJ review, as airlines are currently not compelled to pay compensation for delays in the UK. They also explain that airlines generally do not accept liability for any consequential losses, such as the loss of your first day of the holiday, arising from the delay, unless they are required to do so as a result of court action. It's my reckoning that airlines have been given the green light to take our hard earned cash but are not obliged to deliver exactly what it is the customers are paying for as long as the airline can prove that the delay was caused by"extraordinary circumstances". Surely the airlines will blame every delay on extraordinary circumstances.

Strange, maybe my delay was in Spain which is why they said otherwise... but can't see it. The letter stated, Article 7 of Rgulation No 261 /2004 as why I should be compensated. They also rejected Ryanairs claim of "Extraordinary Circumstances". They state, "technical problems which come to light during maintence of aircraft cannot constitute, in themselves, 'extraordinary circumstances' " under the same Article Number.

ian41

paula40ok wrote: »

I got an email from the Civil Aviation Authority, this week, saying that they would not be able to take up my claim with the airline, given the current position with the ECJ review, as airlines are currently not compelled to pay compensation for delays in the UK. They also explain that airlines generally do not accept liability for any consequential losses, such as the loss of your first day of the holiday, arising from the delay, unless they are required to do so as a result of court action. It's my reckoning that airlines have been given the green light to take our hard earned cash but are not obliged to deliver exactly what it is the customers are paying for as long as the airline can prove that the delay was caused by"extraordinary circumstances". Surely the airlines will blame every delay on extraordinary circumstances.

Paula

If you read the details in my post #1155, certain points might become a little clearer to you. There are many passengers who are waiting for the ECJ ruling,

Equally, while many airlines will claim "extraordinary circumstances", it is much harder for them to prove this in court.

Montrealer

andykb wrote: »

This was the response i finally got from TC about our delay to the uk earlier in the year.
I quoted as per advice from MSE.com, so im wondering what to do next.
My complaint based was based around inacurate info, lack of services(food, drink, comms) lack of TC staff and the 7.5 hour delay

Thank you for your letter regarding your recent flights with Thomas Cook Airlines.

Firstly, I would like to take this opportunity to apologise for the delay you experienced whilst travelling with us and for any inconvenience caused as a result. I do understand how disruptive such delays can be.

In response to your request for compensation, I should advise you that Regulation EC 261/2004 (‘The Regulation’) effective from 17.2.05 contains absolutely no provision requiring an airline to pay compensation to its customers in a delay situation, whatever the cause and duration.

Your claim for compensation arising out of delay to your Thomas Cook flight therefore relies on the 19.11.09 ruling of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) Fourth Chamber in the conjoined cases of Sturgeon v Condor (C-402/07) and Bock/Lipuschitz v Air France (C-432/07) in which, despite there being no such provision in the Regulation, the ECJ ruled that compensation for delay is payable on the same scale as if the airline had deliberately cancelled the flight. Given that delays are completely unpredictable as to when and where they occur, and as to the complexity of the fault to be rectified, this ECJ ruling is of major concern to airlines worldwide.

Accordingly, on 11.6.10, under reference CO-6569/2010, a consortium comprised of TUI/BA/Easyjet and IATA made an application in the High Court for a judicial review of the above ECJ ruling, the Civil Aviation Authority being named as defendant but not opposing the application. The purpose of the application is to persuade the High Court to refer the question of compensation for delay back to the ECJ for a definitive ruling.

I can confirm that the High Court have now heard this review and they have ruled that claims brought by passengers for compensation for delayed flights under EC Regulation 261/2004 are suspended and will not be heard, until the issue has been revisited by the ECJ.

Pending receipt of the ECJ’s decision, all airlines, including Thomas Cook Airlines, are refusing to pay claims for compensation for delay in situations, which rely on the ECJ’s ruling in the Sturgeon/Bock cases mentioned above. Accordingly, I am afraid that I must refuse your request for compensation and I can only apologise that I have been unable to resolve this matter to your satisfaction.

Once again, I am sorry that you have had cause to write in and I do hope any holidays taken in the future will be problem free and much more enjoyable.


Any suggestions?

I got kind of the same answer from the Civil Aviation Authority back in March about my complaint in 2010. Funny enough, when I checked for updates today (and found that awesome forum ), I also found an article in The Guardian online, that a Middlesbrough county court ruled that "claims should still be judged on a "case-by-case basis", removing the need to wait for the ECJ's response." Just google for "Passengers will be able to sue airlines over three-hour delays". The article was actually published 3 weeks before I got that email from the CAA!

Since I got quite annoyed with those stonewalling tactics, I now decided to contact the European Commission in order to see if I can launch a complaint about BA and the CAA with them. To me it looks like people across Europe get their compensation as they should. Only British companies and authorities seem to stall. But I may be wrong on this.

richardw

Montrealer wrote: »

Since I got quite annoyed...

I understand your point, but I'm currently quite happy to wait and see what happens with the ECJ.

ian41

Montrealer wrote: »

Since I got quite annoyed with those stonewalling tactics, I now decided to contact the European Commission in order to see if I can launch a complaint about BA and the CAA with them. To me it looks like people across Europe get their compensation as they should. Only British companies and authorities seem to stall. But I may be wrong on this.

Sorry but while your annoyance may be understandable, you are intending to contact the wrong people. We are talking about aspects of law and neither the EU in general nor the EU Transport Commission specifically, can do anything to intervene. The High Court in the UK has asked the ECJ for clarification and the ECJ will give a ruling in due course. Of course, UK airlines do not wish to pay compensation for delays and so they are entitled to use available (legal) tactics to get aspects of the original ruling reviewed. The High Court could have rejected the review request but chose not to do so.

Yes, many people quote the Middlesbrough case but unless you have exceptional resources of time, money and expertise to spare, most DJs will follow the established line which is that such cases are stayed. Even if you had those exceptional resources, the outcome is unlikely to change.

My advice - just be patient

ronster1

Hi All

After much wrangling with Ryanair over an overnight delay from Ibiza last year, I've received a confirmation from the Spanish Air Authorities confirming the delay was not due to 'extraordinary circumstances' and I should be entitled to compensation.

I recently tried to pursue Ryanair through the small claims court at Swords in Dublin, but they have rejected my claim saying that this compensation is not covered by small claims.

Just wondering if anyone has any advice on how to proceed?

Thanks