Ukraine International cancellation without telling us

Andy_Bee_1

*sorry can this be moved to the correct section*

Hi all, 
I had a flight booked through Ukraine International Airways (UIA) for Kraków-Kiev for 4 people, it cost $38 each when booked many months ago. For two weeks prior to travel, I could not check in on the website, so downloaded the app and tried there many times too, each time getting an error, simply saying "an error has occurred please try again". To sort it out I called them on the number given on the booking but couldn't speak to anyone in English. Eventually I messaged their page on Facebook and was told the flights are cancelled as they no longer fly that route since January. At no point did the site/app say this, nor did they ever communicate this by email or phone/text. I ended up having to pay nearly £100 each for a Ryanair flight that landed late evening on the same day I had booked, as we had accommodation and tours booked. It was a nightmare trying to get the key from a concierge after 11pm without speaking Ukrainian and having no data to use Google translate too! 

As UIA did not inform me (they claim it was mentioned on their website back in January, as if we all check the airlines website every day right?) of the cancellation (I checked email and deleted items just in case) do I have a case for compensation?

They have said not.
But surely no communication about it prior, means the flight was really only cancelled when I found out on Messenger the night before?

Thanks in advance
Andy

JPears

Yes you probably have a claim for compensation. And your re-routing costs (a separate claim), if you weren't aware of the cancellation less than 2 weeks before the actual flight - this is the critical point.

Under EU regs, it is the responsibility for the airline to ensure you have received cancellation notice.

This is all well and good in principle, the difficulty will be extracting the monies due from the airline and enforcing it given the route.

Download Vauban's  most excellent guide.