Court Success Judgement against Small Planet Airlines

emptysuit

Just a quick post regarding Small Planet Airlines. I booked a 7 day holiday via Olympic in September 2012 for my wife and I and suffered a 17 hour delay going out on a Small Planet Airline plane due to technical problems. Because of the well documented claim procedure I wrote to Small Planet who have an office at The Beehive, Gatwick about compensation. I received numerous " we are looking into it" letters before eventually getting the "Extraordinary Circumstances" fob off. I issued a summons in June 2013 and I had a court hearing today in Hastings and Small Planet were a no show. Judge awarded us £741 including travel expenses and interest.They have 14 days to pay.
Its nice to see District Judges becoming very familier with flight delay cases. I have a second one with Thomson Airways on the 23rd October, I hope its the same Judge!!

111KAB

WELL DONE emptysuit as Small Planet (as proven by you) difficult to get hold of. Good luck with Thomson - easier to get hold of but just as slippery!

Alan_Bowen

Not surprised they didn't turn up, the problem will be finding any assets as I am certain they won't pay up. Not sure whether County Court bailiffs can seize aircraft, but if they could, I suspect the airline could use your action as 'extraordinary circumstances' for the subsequent delays!

emptysuit

Thanks for your kind comments. I will get the money as I can use the High Court Enforcement office as the amount is over £600. There will be assets at Gatwick as they have an operations office there and yes, High Court Sheriffs can seize an aircraft!!! I will keep you posted.

emptysuit

Just an update. As has been suggested in this thread , getting our compensation from this lot is going to be a mission as they have closed their operational offices at Gatwick and done a runner and only list offices in Lithuania, Latvia, France, Italy and Poland. Interestingly the UK office is now in Poland.

Not one to be beaten, and I have heard from others who are seeking payment from a judgement against SPA, I have contacted an enforcement company who have arrangements to enforce in the above countries as well as size an asset when it is in the UK, ie an aircraft. Sounds a bit drastic but its legal.I will keep you updated on this saga

111KAB

emptysuit - if you do manage to end up with a plane grateful if you could PM me first as I have a direct contact in the Monarch Airlines legal department - they are always short of planes at Monarch - their cheque may take a few weeks to arrive so I suggest we don't send the plane on until their cheque has cleared! With regard to the plane itself the older and tighter the seats the better so it fits in with the rest of their fleet and if you can manage to land it on the grass at Birmingham (adjacent the runway) they will feel at home immediately. With regard to delivery they won't expect it to be delivered on time and if you can make up an extraordinary reason whilst it was late they are bound to believe you.

Vauban

LOVE IT!:rotfl:

Alan_Bowen

Emptysuit, best of luck but ask the enforcement agents to act quickly, the men behind SPA have a habit of closing airlines down at the end of October as soon as they have collected the Half Term takings which gives you around 14 days before they may disappear. The French and Italian offices are likely to go the same way as Gatwick, so get them to concentrate on Lithuania.......

Mark2spark

That would just be sooooooo funny if someone ended up getting a plane seized in lieu of a EU261 judgement :rotfl:

Vauban

I'm not sure I'd want a Monarch plane, to be honest. They don't seem to work very well, unfortunately. Indeed, when I was 18 (about a hundred years ago) I used to have a clapped out Ford Fiesta that had comparable reliability issues ...

emptysuit

LOL :rotfl: