Cancelled flights

zolablue25

Might it be worth contacting BBCs watchdog programme to see if they can get any joy? It would at least highlight Ryanair's inadequacies and be a bit of a PR nightmare for them.

tufstn

Well, we finally received an email back from Ryanair after over 2 months!

They are not going to pay us anything, not even expenses for travelling from Tours to Nantes to catch the rebooked flight.

It seems to be a standard letter - saying that the delay was an extraordinary circumstance (even though they knew they had a 2 hour slot to land the plan in before the runway was closed), and that we could claim on travel insurance for any other expenses (it's nothing to do with insurance, it's an EU law).

I'm determined to take this further, I suppose it's the Air Transport Users Council next....

tufstn

markameggy,

Snap!

'Following your recent correspondence to us regarding booking confirmation number xxxxxx.

On behalf of Ryanair, we sincerely apologise for the disruption to your recent flight with us. Ryanair is committed to providing on time services for all passengers and continues to be the No. 1 on-time airline with the lowest level of flight cancellations in Europe, as detailed in audited statistics issued by the UK Civil Aviation Authority.

However, notwithstanding the above, there are situations which are outside of the control of Ryanair (extraordinary circumstances) such as adverse weather conditions, unexpected flight safety problems, strikes and security risks that affect our flight operation. We sincerely apologise that your flight was one of the very occasional flights disrupted, as over 99% of our flights were operated sucessfully in the past year.

As this flight disruption was outside our control, we regret that no monetary compensation is due under Article 7 of EU261/2004. Should you have not received a refreshment voucher for €5 per person or have incurred any additional expenses in relation to this flight disruption, contact your travel insurer to initiate a claim. Please note that UK and Irish residents who purchased Ryanair's (Primary) travel insurance receive cover £150/€220 per person to cover for Travel Disruption costs - see Section H of your travel insurance policy for details.

Yours sincerely


RYANAIR PASSENGER COMPENSATION DEPARTMENT'

Note no reference to our specific flight, so they obviously haven't checked why it was cancelled.

Shona99

If I were a shareholder of Ryanair I would be deeply troubled by the recently published opinion by the the European Court's Advocate General on the application of the "extraordinary circumstances" defence to the obligation to provide monetary compensation under Article 7 of EU 261/2004.
This can be found together with lots of surrounding commentary on extraordinary circumstances within www.flightmole.com

It is interesting that Ryanair state that the flight disruption "was outside their control" on two occassions and imply that this is
a) synonymous with "extraordinary circumstances"
b) do not provide details of the why the cancellation was caused or what measures might have prevented the cancellation

As an aside and reference a previous post and the Gospel according to Martin Lewis ie his "article".
Martin Lewis states cateorically that technical problems are not within the ambit of "extraordinary circumstances".
This is simply incorrect- The correct analysis is that "technical problems" may or they may not be and Flightmole and the Advocate General would appear to agree with me.

The simple truth is that this is an involved area and Flightmole begins to unwrap this. This an area where there are not many categoric "answers" to many of the issues.
Unlike the formulaic "litigation by numbers" of "reclaiming" bank charges it is likely that if you are making a serious claim under EU 261/2004 you may expect this to be defended and a claimant will need to using rather more imagination and guile.
That perhaps is not the issue-this should not deter making a claim if it has good prospects of success.

What EU 261/2004 needs is a rigourous deconstruction. Once this is done it can be seen that rather than EU 261/2004 being "full of loopholes" it is heavily weighted in the favour of the passenger rather than the airline.

This is illustrated by the opinion of the Advocate General this assists in unlocking the considerable amount of misinformation circulating EU 261/2004.

Going back to the response from Ryanair consider this

Where within EU 261/2004, within Article 7 or anywhere else within the legislation, is there mention of the concept of "outside the control" of an airline? This is not the defence within EU 261/2004
The defence is "extraordinary cicumstances which could not have been avoided even if all reasonable measures had been taken".
Ryanair and many other airlines would like you to think that these two notions are the same thing when in reality and in law there are entirely the same.
The burden is also upon the airline to prove the full defence.

The opinion of the Advocate General is also very interesting because it canvasses the circumstances where an airline might be obliged to use another aircraft to substitute for the aircraft that has suffered the "technical problem".
Remember that it is not the "technical problem" per se that causes the cancellation of a flight but rather the lack of an available aircraft and decision by the airline to cancel the flight. That aircraft could be sourced from the airline's fleet of available aircraft or even sub-chartered from another airline.

You can begin to see why Ryanair shareholders may be reaching for their sleeping pills-it will also show why Ryanair may not make litigation easy. However Ryanair seem to like resorting to litigation themselves to achieve their perceived rights. Perhaps Ryanair passengers should merely follow their example.

markameggy

tufstn wrote: »

markameggy,

Snap!

'Following your recent correspondence to us regarding booking confirmation number xxxxxx.

On behalf of Ryanair, we sincerely apologise for the disruption to your recent flight with us. Ryanair is committed to providing on time services for all passengers and continues to be the No. 1 on-time airline with the lowest level of flight cancellations in Europe, as detailed in audited statistics issued by the UK Civil Aviation Authority.

However, notwithstanding the above, there are situations which are outside of the control of Ryanair (extraordinary circumstances) such as adverse weather conditions, unexpected flight safety problems, strikes and security risks that affect our flight operation. We sincerely apologise that your flight was one of the very occasional flights disrupted, as over 99% of our flights were operated sucessfully in the past year.

As this flight disruption was outside our control, we regret that no monetary compensation is due under Article 7 of EU261/2004. Should you have not received a refreshment voucher for €5 per person or have incurred any additional expenses in relation to this flight disruption, contact your travel insurer to initiate a claim. Please note that UK and Irish residents who purchased Ryanair's (Primary) travel insurance receive cover £150/€220 per person to cover for Travel Disruption costs - see Section H of your travel insurance policy for details.

Yours sincerely


RYANAIR PASSENGER COMPENSATION DEPARTMENT'

Note no reference to our specific flight, so they obviously haven't checked why it was cancelled.

If you have any success taking it further,please let me know...


The thing that p*sses me off most is that i write them a letter, send it to them with registered post for over 4 pounds, than i get back an email answer after a month but of course it comes from an automated server so instead of being able to reply to it i have to write a normal letter again and it starts all over again!
No wonder they advertise themselves as the airline with the fewest complaints, after 2 letters you just give up!
While every other airline tries to do everything to solve your problems if you have a complain, they simply make it impossible to write a complaint so they can be the airline with the fewest complains!
The way Ryanair operates is really disgusting, but most people (including me,i have to admit) will continue to use them as they are by far the cheapest way to travel from A to B.