Flight cancellation Lufthansa

gaztaylor10

Hi,

My flight from Manchester to Johannesburg was recently cancelled due to staff strikes. However nobody from Lufthansa bothered to tell me about the cancellation. I only found this out for myself when I attempted to check in online.

I tried to call them to discuss my options but could not get through having been on hold for over 3 hours,. I also tried to email them but never received an incident number as promised.

As I had already booked all my hotels and activities in South Africa not going was not an option as I would have lost all the non refundable payments. I therefore has no option but to buy a flight from Emirates at a much increased price. To add insult to injury the only flight available was from London meaning that I had to drive to London in the early hours costing me even more money in petrol. I had also booked an internal flight to cape town (not with Lufthansa) to line up with my arrival to South Africa which I could not make owing to my original flight being cancelled.

I therefore feel that I should be compensated not only for the cost of the Lufthansa flight, but also for the additional costs incurred such as additional flights, petrol and phone calls. I also feel that I should be compensated for the overall stress and inconvienience they have put me through, especially given that they did not have the decency to contact me, which is contrary to their own policy as stated on their website.

Does anyone know what my rights are?

I bough the flights in good faith however Lufthansa have acted unreasonably and broke the contract with no consideration of the consequences or offer of assistance

The majority of posts on the forum appear aimed at delayed flights. Surely the situation I have found myself in, through no fault of my own should never be allowed to happen?

Whilst I can appreciate that strikes happen, Lufthansa should have contacted me to let me know!!

Any advise would be greatly appreciated

Thanks

Gareth

Caz3121

IF you are due EU compensation this will be a fixed amount of €600 for a cancelled flight of that distance. You will likely have to go to court for that. The airline were responsible to reroute you or give refund. As you rerouted yourself you will likely get the refund of the flight and possibly the EU compensation.
Airlines are not responsible for consequential losses such as separate connecting flights and hotels so you would claim that from your travel insurance

and your post should have been on the Lufthansa thread

dzug1

Strikes are a getout clause for the airline as far as EU compensation is concerned so I doubt you will get anything there.

bilbobaggins1973

dzug1 wrote: »

Strikes are a getout clause for the airline as far as EU compensation is concerned so I doubt you will get anything there.

Is that correct ? We recently had our flight home cancelled less than 48 hours before we were due to fly due to cabin crew strikes and the two options given to us were :


Flight 72 hours later than planned with same airline OR
Flight 36 hours BEFORE original with same airline.


What are our rights if we accepted either of these options ?

JPears

dzug1 wrote: »

Strikes are a getout clause for the airline as far as EU compensation is concerned so I doubt you will get anything there.

Incorrect, only strikes by ATC. If airlines own staff strike thats their problem not an EC