security alert at Airport = MISSED FLIGHT...... HELP!

5vicki.82

Hello (new to all of this so please bare with me)

To explain here is the letter i have composed to send to Luton Airport.

Dear Luton Airport

On the above Date while myself, my partner and our 4 children were passing through your security procedure, the fire alarm sounded.
This resulted in us having to leave that particular area and wait in departures, by the time we were allowed back down to retrieve our bags, the flight showed 'gate closed'.

We still proceeded to our gate, our plane was there but there was no staff operating to allow us on to the flight.
I then went to find a member of staff who then advised me to go to gate 6, which we did.

We remained at gate 6 for quite some time, still with no communication from any easyjet or other airport staff as to what was happening. As we waited more and more passengers begun to also wait who were in the same situation as us.

Finally we were all asked to follow a staff member down a corridor, we was led through passport control and baggage reclaim. Which then resulted in us standing in a Que at the Easyjey customer help desk for over 3 hours to rebook our flight, as 'apparently' the pilot had made the decision to off load our bags and go!!!

As you can imagine we was all extremely cross, the communication during the whole process was non existent, which was terribly frustrating as we did didn't have a clue what was happening while waiting around with 4 very young children.

As a result of that mornings events we didn't get to go on our family holiday but we had to
*forfeit our prepaid 14 night car parking booking, and re-book again.
*loose 3 days of our holiday, as the next available flight wasn't until the 20th of July.
*pay again for more fuel to return to the airport 3 days later.

We understand that issues like this do arise, but we fell that compensation is required.



We have our travel insurance with Halifax who we bank with, but after a very long and frustrating conversation with them it turns out that they can not cover us for this issue.
They did suggest i contact air passenger rights.

HAS ANYONE BEEN IN THIS SITUATION AND IF SO WHAT DID YOU DO?????

DrA_Harrogate

Extremely distressing, annoying and frustrating for you all. Under the regulations you can only claim against the airline; Easyjet would no doubt say the delay was nothing to do with them. I do not know of any specific regulation governing the role of the airport.

The only potential gap I can see (but what do I know) is that Easyjet employed the airport and is therefore liable.

Why not try a nwnf lawyer e.g. Botts and see what they think?

DrA_Harrogate

Footnote - Easyjet and the airport knew the passengers were checked in and present so who decided to fly? Was it the airline, represented by the Captain, or the airport who instructed him to leave? It may be that you were 'denied boarding'.

Anyway read Vauban's guide (google) and see what you think. Maybe m'learned colleagues will chip in as well....

Tyzap

Wow, thats an awkward one.

I assume it was a false fire alarm? Many other passengers must have also been caught up in this so when did it happen?

The airport act as a third party on behalf of the airline so I would think the passenger claims from the airline and the airline would be entitled to claim back from the airport if they wanted to.

However, I cannot see this being settled without going to court unless a large group of similarly affected passengers got together to persuade/tempt a NWNF company to take it on or DIY.

You could also check the on line flight delay calculators to see if they think you have a case.

Alternatively it just may be worth asking the CAA to deal with your claim just to get a clear point of view. This will delay your claim but may help in deciding if it should go to court at a later date.

EJ, once again, have shown a complete disregard to their passengers and made no meaningful effort to resolve the situation.

Good luck.

ShipleyButcher

This is terrible, easyJet should have delayed the flight, despite the inconvenience this will have caused to those already boarded. This is the problem now, airlines are too keen to depart on time.