Compensation for delayed flights Discussion Area

mad_rich

ccluedo wrote: »

Hi again M_R. I spoke to CA again and offer is same as b4. The only thing they would budge on is that they have offered to pay for the Gatwick/Heathrow shuttle ONE WAY (miserable gits):rolleyes:
I havent accepted anything yet.

Aberdeen isnt an option I'm afraid and I dont see any flights out of Bristol with Continental? I should perhaps add that I was flying nonstop Gatwick-Houston (5day stopover) then Houston-Miami and return by same routes so its not quite straightforward. The internal US flights are unaffected (so far)!

Thanks again for your endeavours to help me

EDIT: I see CA fly to Newark where I could change for Houston but the Inverness flight arrives in Bristol after the Newark one has departed. There is only one flight per day on each

That's a bit of a poor show, only offering the shuttle fare one way.

You could also have a look at buying a flybe flight to Belfast, Birmingham, Edinburgh or Manchester (other Continental destinatons) if connection times work out. Unfortunately Inverness doesn't give you a lot of options, since you have no connection to a major gateway (LHR, AMS, CDG, FRA etc).

I would keep at it. Phone them again and tell them that they've dropped you in a hole and that you're willing to work with them to find a solution. Most airlines are pretty good but a) you have to keep pestering them, and b) you need to have done your homework.

Given that the refund option is still open, keep your eye out for prices on other airlines. Not just from Gatwick but from any other airports that you can reasonably get to.

If you post your travel dates here, and how much you paid Continental, I'll see if I can find anything.

sam_cogan

I Travelled to Turkey with Thomas Cook. On the way out we suffered an 11 hour delay. The flight was supposed to leave t 9.20 pm, it left at 8.15 the next morning. After wating 6 huours we were finally put in a hotel at 3am, but had to return to the airport at 5am as none told us what time the flight would leave in the morning, just anytime from 5am. We were not offered any food or drink until 6am the next day, even when we got to the hotel the desk staff told us thomas coo were only paying for rooms, any food we would have to pay for.

Can I claim compensation for this? I mentioned it to the thomas cook rep, but she then stated no it had to be more than 12 hours to get any compensation, which I believe to be a lie.

We were also lied to about the reason for the delay. The thomas cook rep stated the nect morning it was due to a computer failure on the aircraft causing a near miss, however we overheard from the cabin crew when we did finally leave, it was because one of the previous cabin crew was too tired and refused to fly.

claira74

My family (hubby, 7 yr old daughter, 5 month old son and me) were on a Thomson flight from Reus (spain) to Doncaster. We were due to leave Reus at 22.30 on the Saturday night.At about 21.45 a message came up on the monitors advising that the flight had been cancelled - we were told initially that it was due to high winds (yes there was high wind, but we had sat in the airport watching at least 3 other flights take off and land) and that the plane had been diverted to Barcelona and that we would be taken by coach transfer to get our flight home (about an hour away) They then told us the plane had developed a technical fault. So off we went and collected our luggage and then put it all on the coaches (we were particularly peeved by all this as we'd paid €70 for private taxi transfers to and from our hotel because we didn't want the nightmare of travelling by cattle bus with a baby, another young child, luggage and pushchair - so much for that) we then all sat on the coaches for a good 20 minutes until someone decided they wanted a cigarette and got off to have one, they then overheard a conversation between 2 of the reps saying that we were not going to Barcelona we'd be taken back to Salou and given overnight accomodation and then we'd fly the following day.This obviously soon got round all the other passengers and after several people confronting them about it the reps finally 'formally' told us this was the case, so after waiting a further 10 minutes (so in total 30 mins on a stuffy coach holding my very tired baby) we were taken to a hotel in Salou and stuck in a conference room with no windows and the most appalling smell or either stagnant water or sewage - by this time it was well past midnight - my seven year old and the other 20 children on the flight had had nothing to eat since teatime and they were really hungry - did Thomson make any food available - no, did they offer hot drinks? - no, all the offered us was bottled water at room temperature - it made me retch coupled with the smell in the room.Anyway at about half 2 in the morning we were given our allocated accomodation and told we would need to be in the reception at 9am the following morning, we were also told that we would be given and allowance of €25 per person for refreshments but we'd have to pay it out and then reclaim when we got back, which was marvellous as many people had spent the last of their local currency in the airport, stupidly expecting to be on a flight back to the UK within a few hours, besides as it was 2.30am they could have given us €1000 and we still wouldn't have been able to get anything to eat because oddly enough every where was closed We finally got to the accomodation they had allocated us to and it was DISGUSTING - it was dirty, it smelled revolting, the sheets they provided for our babies cot were damp, not only that it was in the middle of nowhere, there wasn't even so much as a vending machine to get a bar of chocolate. We finally got into bed at gone 3.30am, my little girl still having had nothing to eat since 6pm the following day, I spent most of the night awake with her as she was having nightmares and spent most of the night screaming hysterically as she was so upset by the whole thing. My hubby got up at 9am the following morning after just a few hours sleep and made his way to reception as requested to be told by the Thomson rep that we all needed to be back in reception with our luggage by 9.30am for a coach pick up to transfer to Barcelona at 10am - so no time to change clothes or shower or get anything to eat.Finally get to Barcelona airport after well over an hour on a packed bus - my daughter had to sit on my husbands knee the whole journey - where we eventually got our flight home at 2pm and landed back in the UK at 3pm - even the Pilot on the flight said how appalled he was at the way we had been treated during the delay - says something really doesn't it - he said he would be submitting his own report about the whole ordeal.So when we arrive home, we have a letter at the airport from Thomsonfly 'apologising' for the delay and telling us to claim through our travel insurance. Now frankly why should we? It was Thomsons ineptitude at properly dealing with a delay situation so I think they should pay up - its not so much the delay, I accept that this was not their fault and yes, I would rather late on a safe plane, but Thomson are bragging about how wonderful they are for help to 'save' stranded XL passengers, they might first of all want to consider the people who have paid money to them and get them home, we were all pretty sure that's why there was no replacement flight to get us home as they would have all been in use ferrying XL passenger - now I'm sure its pretty bad for those affected by the XL business, but surely Thomson have a duty of care to their own customers first and I'd like to bet a fairly considerable sum they didn't do it for love alone - how much will they have been paid to lay on those extra flights??????Anyway, 3 times now I've been in touch with Thomson via e-mail and they refuse to admit they were in the wrong and are point blank refusing to pay out any sort of compensation, they won't even give me the courtesy of a telephone call to discuss the matter with a human being - I've now sent a letter and I'm seriously considering speaking to local media to see if we can get a few of us from the flight together and make the !!!!!!s pay out, I really feel that after the way we were treated that we deserve something.Any opinions/advice/comments welcome - apologies for length and ranting nature, but I'm extremely cross

reinin

My 3pm connection flight from Miami to Chicago was delayed due to technical fault by 5 hours, which meant I would miss the last flight of the day back to London. AA did not give me any assistance to get me on another AA flight or even on a flight of another airline. Phone calls or emails were also denied. Further I found out that AA does not serve vegetarian meals for flights under 8 hours.

In the end AA put me into a crappy Hotel in Chicago and I caught a flight early in the morning. For my ‘starving’ return to London I was delayed by more than 12 hours in total, in urgent need for a Taxi to survive the 30 hour ordeal.

I know under EC Regulation 261/2004 I would have been eligible to 2 phone calls and/or emails. On bigger scale however the EC Regulation differentiates between cancellation and delay. If AA had cancelled the flight, I would receive compensation of 600 Euros.

Have I got any rights for compensation, at least the taxi fare of £40 I paid?


I complained the first day after my arrival and I have only received a vague response not offering me anything more than 6 months later.

MORPH3US

Hi guys, looking for some advice on this:

Flew to Turkey last week with Onur airlines.

Flight out was delayed three hours and after trying for ages to get hold of someone and being ignored / passed around we begrudgingly got food vouchers.

On the way back, the same flight was delayed 1 hour.

Would I be able to claim compensation for the delay?

Its not really about the money, its about teaching them not to be late as I believe that this is something that they very regularly do. Apparently most weeks it could be 5 hours delays so we were lucky.

ScottishCowboyGG

Hi Guys
Just stumbled across this thread,
In June my wife and 2 sons flew BMI from EDI to LHR t1 (06.30-08.00) everything OK
On arrival at LHR t3 (08.35) departure board stated that United Airlines flight to Los Angeles (LAX) due to depart 10.35 "delayed" on enquiring at the desk she was told that the plane was broken, and flight may be cancelled. In the meantime UA sent a man out with a bag of spanners and a box of bits but couldn't fix it. Over an hour later a tannoy announcement confirmed the flight was cancelled. UA got her on an Air France to LAX which departed at 17.00. So as far as I can see we could claim the compensation, am I correct. I travelled out 9 days later and both BMI and UA flights went according to schedule, lucky me huh?

Mr_Bean_3

I was due to fly home from Valencia yesterday morning at 7:30am local time and being a "considerate flier" arrived at the airport not long after 4am, checked myself in through security and grabbed myself a coffee to stay awake. 7:30 arrived and no plane. 8:30 arrived and a message appeared saying there would be more information in an hour. This didn't change until until gone 11am Then a passenger with a laptop found that we were entitled to food and drink, so we all left the secure area and went down to the RyanAir desk to get our 5 Euro voucher which clearly stated "for a sandwhich and drink" FIVE EUROS in an airport. Going back through security was something else becasue they were unaware that the flight had been cancelled and assumed we were late.

The information display had now changed to a 13:30 flight, then the flight went off the display, then the gate changed then 13:30 came and went and at around 6pm still nothing. The boarding gate changed again, but this was not put on the information board, just some eagle-eyed traveller noticed it above the new gate.

23:10 The plane was here and the boarding gate was opened for us. Everyone, and I mean everyone on that flight cheered and clapped when the gate was opened for us and the staff just looked at us as if to say "is something wrong?"

On the flight home, most of us refused to buy any drinks or duty free and, due to the lengthy time at the airport and an ad-hoc meeting, we all have the relevant details to make a claim for this (almost) 16 hour delay.


And the reason for the delay.....
There was a technical problem on an airfraft bound for another destination, so our plane was diverted to that flight and we, well we were deemed not to be important enough

claireyp_2

Hello, I was just after a bit of advice really. We were booked on Air Zimbabwe flights to Malawi, via Harare a few weeks ago for our honeymoon. They are notoriously unreliable (we had originally booked with another airline but they stopped doing the route and transferred us to Air Zim), but we phoned 4 days before and told the flight was still scheduled for 18.00 SAt as booked. On Saturday am I had a bad feeling and phoned the travel agents again. They said that they had tried to contact us as Air Zim had changed the flight time to 10.00 SAt the day before - by then it was gone 10 so we missed the flight. they rebooked us onto one on sun evening due to go at 18.30 it eventually left at 01.00 Monday. We had missed our connecting flight by over a day (!), and were told there were no flights to Malawi for 2 more days !/ Anyway we managed to get there the next day, via South Africa. I have to say the Air Zim manager in Harare was good at sorting this out and put us up overnight in Harare. However we were 2 days + late arriving in Malawi and though I was able to alter our hotel bookings a bit, we missed out on a day at a posh safari camp we had already paid for and 2 days of holiday too. We forgot about it quickly and had a great holiday, but it was quite stressful at the time and also annoying as apparently Air Zim always do this - if their president wants to go somewhere he uses the London plane as it is their only big one and the passengers have to live with it. I wanted to try and claim some compenstaion, at least for the days safari I paid for and missed out on, but there is not much advice on your rights if your plane goes 8 hours early !! SHould I complain to the airline, or the travel agent - they said they had tried to phone us, but we had no missed calls, and they did not e mail us which is how we had previously communicated with them , but were helpful in sorting it all out in the end and getting us on the next flight. Or shoudl I just forget about it and accept it is a risk you take when booking flights and other bits of holidays independently (though there is no choice for Malawi unless you are rich!). Any advice appreciated thanks

neilsolaris

I am currently trying to claim compensation from United Airlines for a flight that got cancelled from London Heathrow to Chicago, that resulted in a delay of over 22 hours. The flight was cancelled because a demisting warning light was not working.

According to the flight delays page on moneysaving expert (http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/travel/flight-delays#cancel), this should be a really simple case, in my favour. It says that for cancellations that result in more than a 4 hour delay, and are from an EU country to somewhere as far as America, then the airline is liable to pay the customer 600 euros.

However, there is a discrepancy. On moneysavingexpert, it says "Airlines are exempt from paying out compensation if cancellations are due to "‘extraordinary circumstances'. Basically this covers unpreventable occurrences such as extreme weather conditions, security risks and worker strikes, but not technical problems with the aircraft."

However, I got back an email from United saying "
Please know that it is stated as follows under The Official Journal of the European Union Regulation 261/2004 Recital 14:
“... 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.”
United Flight 949 on September 14 was cancelled due to a mechanical issue, which is categorized as an unexpected flight safety shortcoming and thus, is excluded as per above. I regret any disappointment."

So, my question is, who is correct in the interpretation in this instance, moneysavingexpert or United Airlines? Can "an unexpected safety shortcoming" include technical problems with the aircraft, as was the case here?

Naturally I'm keen to receive the compensation, so I'd be very grateful if someone here could help me on this. Many thanks.

ccluedo

Update on my Continental Airlines problem. After numerous (local rate) phone calls I have recieved $75 worth of Amex Gift Vouchers to compensate for return shuttle cost from Gatwick to Heathrow.
Thanks again to all who offered advice.