Onward Flight Cancelled

peachyprice

JPears wrote: »

Caz the arguement would be that the passenger has booked a flight from UK to Chandigarh with a single carrier. The fact that it requires a change at airport should be irrelevent, sury it should be treated as single flight?

The problem is, it's not an EU carrier, even though the flight originates in the EU and may well be covered under the EU regs, Air India won't give a damn about such a threat knowing it can't be easily enforced through our/EU courts.

Vauban

Let's not conflate the two issues (though both are challenging and need addressing) - whether the law says an airline should pay and whether you can make them do so.

The latter is relatively straightforward to address: does Air India have a serviceable address in the UK and assets which could be levied by a bailiff to enforce a judgement. If not, then you are likely to be on a hiding to nothing. (I don't know the answer to this, incidentally: you need to do your own research.)

The legal question though seems much more complex, as Caz says. Some believe that the Folkerts judgement means that any journey starting in Europe involving directly connecting flights is covered by the Regulation, and that it's the time you arrive at the final destination (post connection) that counts.

Others however (including most lawyers I talk to) argue that a single journey like this comprises of separate flights - and that only those flights covered by the Regulation would be subject to the Folkerts ruling. A Quantas flight leaving Dubai would not qualify because of this, even if you started your journey in London.

No senior court has tested this, as far as I know. The judgement that Caz has usefully found sets no precedent. Given the uncertainty, many airlines might choose to settle a legal claim rather than deal with the expense of fighting it. But this will not be a straightforward claim - and NWNF's won't touch it, I fear.

JPears

It does seem an odd situation - a direct flight to Chandighar would be covered if cancelled/delayed but an indirect flight isn't.
What would be even more bizarre is if its the same aircraft that does both legs of the journey

mubansal

At least everybody agrees that this is complex :-). Lets see what happens at the airport, I will give it another try to get it re-routed via some other airline. I need to be in Chandigarh on same day and can't wait for next day flight. At London airport if I do not agree to re-route via Air-India they will reissue me ticket just for London-Delhi. I will just have to book at my own expense another flight from Delhi-Chandigarh and try to get it reimbursed from Air-India. Considering Air-India customer service, a pretty challenging task.

JPears

As mentioned earlier, just ensure your return trip is not affected in anyway.

tilla_tech_2

Taken from the eu 261/2004 journal.
Article 2 "Definitions"

(h) ‘final destination’ means the destination on the ticket presented at the check-in counter or, in the case of directly connecting flights, the destination of the last flight; alterna- tive connecting flights available shall not be taken into account if the original planned arrival time is respected;

mubansal

The airport staff was much more helpful. They re-routed us from Delhi to Chandigarh via another airline and we reached Chandigarh before the original flight would have landed. But as it is Air-India, there was a surprise. The inbound Chandigarh-London flight is a mess. The flight schedule is changed there as well which means that my Chandigarh-Delhi flight reaches Delhi at a time by which Delhi-London has already left. So I have to stay overnight in Delhi and then take the next day flight from Delhi-London.