Lightning strike at Stansted airport- compensation? 27 May 2018 at 9:21AM in Flight delay compensation 46 replies 10.9K views

Keep_pedalling

peterbaker wrote: »

That snippet doesn't help stranded passengers who want to rebook on cacelled routes that are, according to the airport/Ryanair airport announcements, now fully booked for four days, now does it, KP? That's the real question, not is the airport moving again, and will it move normally tomorrow. Sure it is and will. The stranded passengers ain't moving anywhere fast though, now are they? They are persona non-grata if they are still hanging around in the morning and haven't got "the message" to that effect.

That snippet answered Reselies question, I could not give a toss if it does not help you.

peachyprice

peterbaker wrote: »

Are you imparting useful knowledge, or relaying part of something you think you once understood? Either way, the airline left it very late to notify they had cancelled and so they have stranded pax both on their hands. and in their face so to speak. Thank you for your concern, and if you could compare and contrast the separate issues of travel insurance claims and EU261 care in your next contribution, I am sure some might find it useful.

.

What's with the attitude?

peterbaker

Well the news from Stansted at 0115 in the morning was that the Ryanair desk (is that Swissport stooges on behalf of Ryanair or real Ryanair peeps - anyone know?) reportedly behaved as badly as Ryanair can be. Yesterday's passengers are indeed persona non-grata and are on their own unless they wish to play the Ryanair game and stand in a queue for hours and hours and then be told to do that all again tomorrow and the next day and the day after if necessary else they wont be provided with any hotel reimbursement.

If I have been told right, Ryanair said they would pay for accommodation but made no offer of organising it, and that their offer was provisional upon the group now making themselves available for stand-by at every flight from now on on their original route. No indication about how they should now arrange their own hotel at 0130 in the morning, and get some sleep, breakfast and get back to the airport for the early morning flights. No indication that the group would be kept together to fly.

I'm told they provided no food this evening for those that stood in queues for hours and hours, but the airport provided some water for those made thirsty whilst looking at the machine guns.


Regarding any re-routing the desk staff warned that Ryanair will (arbitrarily) impose a limit on DIY re-routing of 3x what the original Ryanair tickets cost. Is that 3x thing a new idea they've dreamed up?

So there you have it boys and girls, amazing the Irish introduced the 8th and then put up with it as long as they did, and even more amazing that CAA and CMA have put up with that Irish airline's idea of customer care as long as they have.

CAA's passenger complaint line is 0330 022 1916. They forgot to change the weekend recording which indicated they were open Mon-Fri from 10am, but some bright spark or probably the computer, has adjusted customer expectation tonight by changing the recording in the last couple of hours to now state they are closed for a UK Public Holiday and referring callers to their website.

Tyzap

The CAA are never there when they are needed most, it was the same with other major disruption such as Ryanair cancelling hundreds of flights and BA's computer debacle.

If Ryanair cannot or will not re book cancelled flights you can do it yourself.

The airline owe passengers a duty of care, in other words they must look after you while you remain in their care. This 3x limit is rubbish and the CAA will support you on this. When there is a flood of passengers all looking for local hotel accommodation the price goes up and availability goes down. Waiting for standby seats for each departing flight is also a step too far, it's purely impractical when you have had no sleep or rest.

Make alternative arrangements and keep all receipts for meals, transport, hotel etc to claim back at a later date. Keep cost to a minimum as best as possible. You can arrange flights with an alternative airline if you can find any at this busy time.

What is happening here are typical Ryanair tactics, passengers are abandoned with no pro active help unless you are prepared to do it all yourself.

Good luck to everyone still stranded.

peterbaker

https://www.ryanair.com/gb/en/travel-updates/articles/stansted-cancellations

Stansted Cancellations
28 May 2018 . 10:43
A number of flights have regrettably been cancelled at Stansted Airport this morning due to an earlier airport fuelling system failure, caused by a lightning strike.

All affected customers have been contacted by email and SMS and advised of their options of a full refund, a free transfer on to the next available flight or a free transfer on to alternative routing.

We apologise to all customers affected by these disruptions, which are entirely beyond our control.

Nice and mealy-mouthed, eh? True to form ... here's a possibly useful Corporate Irish English to British English translation tool:

• free transfer on to the next available flight = standby ticket = no idea how long before a seat is available but you must make yourself available at the gate for every flight going your way from now on and wait in line with up to ten or more other third class maybe passengers until all booked and checked-in passengers have boarded, on the off-chance someone hasn't turned up or we won't pay for your hotel or food.
• free transfer on to alternative routing = contact us (if you can) to find out what we mean by that because almost certainly it'll bear no relation to what you might think, especially if your suggested re-routing is not with one of our "partners" where we won't help you at all if you dare mention you are considering it. In fact we'll warn you that if you spend more than 3x what you paid us for the cancelled flight, you'll not get your extra travel costs back from us.
• entirely beyond our control = we deliberately don't spend money to risk manage any forseeable risk or misfortune which we think we can successfully dump on passengers right under the nose of CAA, because we find it helps our bottom line.
• unwritten message = By the way, still hanging around at Stansted? - haven't you got the message yet? Go away.

PS The group of eight I have been in touch with are just taking off now from another airport after queuing for 8 hours at Stansted and basically getting the as above-mentioned finger at the Ryanair desk at past 1 in the morning. They got an Uber, booked online with a proper airline that gives serious discounts to under 25s (far far better than Ryanair would ever give on a same day booking*) and hope to be home about 24 hours late.

Daveinlincoln

I was there yesterday and it was carnage!

I was on Jet2 flight LS1431 to Dubrovnik...I think we were the most messed around out of everyone.

Upon arrival loads of Ryan flights were cancelled and announcements made to inform people...not so with Jet2.

We were allowed to check in and and were assured that we would be going but there could be a delay.The flight was due to fly at 16.10...the screens in the departure lounge just said the gate would be announced at 16.30...then it was 18.35 ...then 20.05...then 22.20....all the while other jet2 flights were taking off so how does that work?

Then eventually the flight disappeared off the screen and we were stood around looking at each other wondering what was going on??

No announcement was made...we had no idea,I found out the flight was cancelled from a cleaner changing the bins.

So we trudged out and went home.

Like many have said above the airlines have a duty of care...i rang Jet2 this morning and was assured i'd be getting a full refund in the next few days as we'd booked a package with them...fair enough.

But what about the wasted money on car parking ?the lost time ironing clothes,packing driving to the airport/back from the airport?We can't book another holiday a few days later as we had our kid with us and he has GCSE's next week.This was to be our last family holiday for years.

Why were we left for so long to hang around the airport? If other flights with Jet2 took off then why not ours?

I think this absolutely counts under the ruling for compensation.

mabenson

We flew back from Kos to stansted yesterday. Due to the lightning and a French air controllers problem the incoming flight was late and so our departure was delayed by 3 hrs. However, during the flight the captain comes on and says the crew can't carry on as they have worked too many hours and we were diverted to cologne (a non jet2 hub). We then sat on the tarmac on the plane for 3 1/2 hours whilst they flew another crew in from leeds. Eventually they allowed us into the terminal and gave us a £20 food voucher. 200 plus people then queued patiently for over an hour to try and get food from the single open food outlet (the one person running it was a hero!) After another 2hrs or so in cologne we get back on the same plane and arrive back in stansted 11 1/2 hours later than scheduled! I can see Jet2 might claim the circumstances at stansted caused the delay at kos. However, surely they must have known about the crew hours etc before the flight left. As soon as they realised that I think they should have put something in place to deal with it. However, they didn't seem to have a plan at all and so from leaving kos onwards I believe it is a jet2 issue and not a lightning strike issue. Am I right? Does this fall under the EU compensation ruling?

Thanks, Matt

Tyzap

HI Matt,

You may qualify for compensation, we cannot be sure without all the details.

Firstly tho, just put a claim in to J2 and see how it goes. If they refuse to pay out come back here, to the dedicated Jet2 thread, and we can take it from there.

Good luck

mabenson

Thanks Tyzap, I'll put it through resolver today.

nxdmsandkaskdjaqd

Any updates from passengers who are perusing a claim with their airline?