Connecting flights + compensation rules - can anyone help?

GILLA999

JPears wrote: »

Although your flight was only 15min late arriving it was 45 mins later departing (flights often have an arrival time scheduled later than the normal or usual arrival time) so Aer Lingus were probably justified in their decision.
I'm still perplexed why they rerouted you all the way to your final destination when their obligation really stopped once you got to Gatwick (or didin't as the case may be). That will have cost them ALOT of money.
I'm minded that they are still liable for compensation, given the above.
What were the details of your missed flight to Vegas? And are you certain it was VA, not BA, whoose flight is 40 mins later than the VA. The BA flight is a codeshare with Aer Lingus.

Yes absolutely certain it was Virgin. The flight was VA 43 due to leave Gatwick at 10:30 on Weds 6th. They called out the flight number when making the announcement that we would be re-routed, and they gave us a new itinerary etc which was from Aer Lingus. On the payment section of the new itinerary which was emailed to us it says "INVOLREROUTE DLY EI123/06APR"

Yes I noticed when I looked at the Flight Stats website that the Aer Lingus flight was a code share with BA.

Alan_Bowen

The minimum connection time at Gatwick is 1 hour 15, once Aer Lingus saw that their delay was likely to result in Virgin refusing to carry you they did what a good airline should do and found another way for you, and it seems other passengers as well, to get you where you wanted to go. I think they should be congratulated on their humanity

GILLA999

Alan_Bowen wrote: »

The minimum connection time at Gatwick is 1 hour 15, once Aer Lingus saw that their delay was likely to result in Virgin refusing to carry you they did what a good airline should do and found another way for you, and it seems other passengers as well, to get you where you wanted to go. I think they should be congratulated on their humanity

Believe me, if you'd have been put through a nightmare 8 hour delay and a 22 hour total travel time ultimately for no reason at all,you would struggle to see it that way too.

JPears

Gilla, whilst we understand your issues with the delay, it is good (and surprising) that Aer Lingus took responsibilty way above and beyond their actual obligations. Most airlines would have either just refunded your airfare to Gatwick or got you to Gatwick later, end of. They had no legal or contractual obligtion to do anything else.
I still think there is an opportunity to claim on 261/2004 given that you were ultimately delayed due to your original flight, irrespective of what Aer Lingus did to mitigate your delay. You difficulty will be taking it through the Irish courts, if that is your home address, as there is no small claims equivalent that isn't subject to potentially high costs.

Gleeful

Virgin do use EI for their Dublin - Gatwick flights so I'm not sure that the information given here about them going above and beyond is strictly accurate as this would have been a Virgin through ticket from DUB-LAS

JPears

Gleeful - I did point this out earlier in thread - Virgin did wet lease from Aer Lingus at some point for some flights. I think regulars here are surprised at the Aer Lingus respsonse/action.
If you are correct, which I don't doubt, then Gilla will need to make a claim against Virgin. Or both if they play hard ball.

Caz3121

the wetleases were on the Virgin Little Red flights from LHR - MAN/EDI/ABZ
planes were all painted in Virgin livery and crew in Virgin uniforms
https://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/virgin-atlantic-to-wet-lease-a320s-from-aer-lingus-379994/

Alan_Bowen

The wet lease was a pure commercial deal because VS had no short haul planes at all to operate their ill fated and very expensive experiment at domestic UK flying. It finished some time ago and they do not code share with Virgin.

If EI had done nothing, they would have got you to Gatwick too late to be carried to Vegas at all and you would have been there for 24 hours until the next Virgin flight, assuming their were any seats available and Vegas normally operates full and since you report that you were not the only customers affected, you might well have been there for more than 24 hours in reality. As soon as VS saw the EI flight was expected to be late, you would have been off loaded from the passenger manifest and rebooked for the next available flight, even if by some miracle the plane still arrived on time

GILLA999

Thanks all very much for your replies. When I printed out my boarding pass at Vegas on my return leg she said she was "unable" not to print the Gatwick-Dublin boarding pass at the same time. (Long story of why I wanted her to, but that's what she said). Again this indicated to me that it was "one flight", but I realise that could just be perception.

One further thing I've found interesting is that I spoke to two different no-win / no-fee places yesterday and showed them my Expedia ticket / itinerary and both checked with their legal teams and said that I am entitled to the standard $600 compensation - on both legs of the journey. They obviously won't give any details until I sign up with them (which I'm loathe to do) but the fact they are prepared to take the case on on a no win no fee basis, suggests to me there must at least be some chance? Or do you think that's me clutching at straws?

I completely understand, in hindsight after speaking to everyone here, the point about why Aer Lingus would have rerouted me, and I agree it does seem strange.

As an aside to my specific case, do others not feel that the law is flawed here - that you require the second leg of the journey to booked with the same airline in order to qualify to use that as your final destination, even if you book it on one ticket? The length of delay and the perpetrator is still the same, so to me it doesn't seem right, and after this incident I've spoken to a lot of people who had no idea. I will never not book long haul journeys with the same airline after this! I understand if you book your own individual flights that no one else can be liable, but if an airline allows you or travel agencies to purchase it as one journey / ticket, then they should accept liability for any delay they cause to that journey. In terms of fairness, I also think a fairer thing to do would be to offer that, but not offer a fixed amount of compensation - I don't think I should get more than what I paid for my ticket.

This is my first experience / awareness of these laws, so I'm interested to hear other people's views!

As an aside - there were from memory about four other Virgin flights running from London to Las Vegas that day. I always found it strange at the time that they didn't put me on one of those, a couple of which would have got me there quicker than the Aer Lingus Dublin-Chicago-Vegas option.

JPears

One more thing - what happened on your return journey at Gatwick when you missed your connection?