Royal Air MaroC;LOSTBAGS,6HR DELAY,CHANGE OF DESTINATION

happylimpet

HI folks! Sorry if this is a bit wordy - but its basically what I sent to RAM. I suspect we are due no compensation having read Vauban's guide - but would appreciate any advice! RAM are presumably not an EU airline?

We have been offered our 132 taxi cost as flight vouchers - which are no use to us.

(SUMMARY OF BELOW- missed connection in casablanca, changed destination [gatwick -> heathrow], 6 hrs late, lost luggage, only taxi to gatwick offered)

We were scheduled to return from Banjul to Gatwick on the 19th November '17.

Our flight out of Banjul was delayed by ~40 mins, such that we arrived at Casablanca as the Gatwick flight was scheduled to leave. We were given boarding cards for a later Heathrow flight (6 hour delay) without any information - we didnt realise the flight was changed until we arrived at the closed departure gate for the Gatwick flight.

In Casablanca there was no assistance; we were repeatedly sent from one person to another (transit desk to the acommodation agent in Terminal 1, to the agent at the check in desk, back to the transit desk) with everyone denying any information or ability to assist.

Arriving at Heathrow, we realised (as did all people from the Banjul flight) that our bags were lost. This left us at the wrong airport with no warm clothes and 6c outside. Also our (now useless) train tickets from Gatwick were in our lost baggage (returned 3 days later).

Your agent Vincenzo of ASC, working at 'airline ticket services 2' spoke to RAM's Station Manager, who offered only to taxi us to gatwick, despite us living only 50 minutes from heathrow, which was clearly of no use. He apparently refused to taxi us home, despite having lost our baggage with warm clothes. Vincenzo did not permit us to speak with him. He told us we had to make our own way home on public transport and claim the cost from yourselves, wearing only shorts and a t-shirt, now 8 hours late in the cold november night from a different airport to the one we booked.

We thererfore require the cost of our taxi (£132), and some minor sustenance (~£8) for which we have receipts we can supply.

We also require some degree of compensation for the inconvenience . This was extremely stressful and a ruinous end to our holiday. We will listen to any offer you make and are making our own investigations on this front.

I can assure you that this will be followed up with tenacity.

jpsartre

There is no entitlement to compensation for the delay since RAM is not a community carrier. However, you are arguably entitled to a refund of the costs you incurred in getting from LHR to your final destination. The relevant part of EU261 is article 8.3:

"When, in the case where a town, city or region is served by several airports, an operating air carrier offers a passenger a flight to an airport alternative to that for which the booking was made, the operating air carrier shall bear the cost of transferring the passenger from that alternative airport either to that for which the booking was made, or to another close-by destination agreed with the passenger."

Missed connections and delayed bags are part of airline travel. You can mitigate the risk and/or consequences by avoiding short connection times, packing essentials in carry-on luggage, etc.

happylimpet

Thanks for the reply! They did offer us a free taxi to Gatwick (our final destination), but that was of no use to us as we would then have had to get a more expensive taxi/train home (as they'd lost our train tickets - I guess we should have carried those).

"either to that for which the booking was made, or to another close-by destination agreed with the passenger."

I assume this is at their discretion. ie this doesn't mean they should have taken us home (approx same distance as Gatwick), bearing in mind they'd lost our bags with warm clothing?