Wizzair flight cancellation - just checking my rights - UPDATED INFO, HELP WOULD BE GREAT

bagand96

CKhalvashi said:

bagand96 said:

CKhalvashi said:

Pop them an e-mail asking for METAR reports for the day for both airports and the aircraft type expected to be used on the day.

It pay be worth e-mailing both airports in addition for the requested info, also asking if this was an operational or non-operational cancellation.

If Wizz don't cave, this can then be compared against the performance limits to give you a clear answer.

Historic METARs (Meteorological Aerodrome Reports) can be viewed on this site: https://www.ogimet.com/metars.phtml.en

A quick browse shows a very foggy morning in Krakow on 01/10, but it cleared up later on.  Nothing untoward in Birmingham other than a bit breezy.

I guess it depends if the early morning fog in Krakow was bad enough to stop the outbound aircraft departing.  Would have to see if other flights were operating from Krakow at the same time.

This would be first wave, so the first check would be to see if the 5001 was W6 or W9 operated, if W6 then did this go (it's the flight to Luton).

5000, 7000 and CAVOK (10000+) seems to be present on this morning at relevant times, which would suggest there wasn't an issue with fog, so this may be worth confronting the airline on.

Assuming the OP's flight is W65018 BHX-KRK 0835-1200 the aircraft would indeed be a first wave Krakow departure as W65017 KRK-BHX 0610-0755. 

The W65017 didn't operate on 01/10, and the departure time is right when it was thick fog at Krakow. Question is whether that fog was enough to stop departures or not, and whether that would be an extraordinary circumstance for the subsequent cancellation of the W65018

CKhalvashi

bagand96 said:

CKhalvashi said:

bagand96 said:

CKhalvashi said:

Pop them an e-mail asking for METAR reports for the day for both airports and the aircraft type expected to be used on the day.

It pay be worth e-mailing both airports in addition for the requested info, also asking if this was an operational or non-operational cancellation.

If Wizz don't cave, this can then be compared against the performance limits to give you a clear answer.

Historic METARs (Meteorological Aerodrome Reports) can be viewed on this site: https://www.ogimet.com/metars.phtml.en

A quick browse shows a very foggy morning in Krakow on 01/10, but it cleared up later on.  Nothing untoward in Birmingham other than a bit breezy.

I guess it depends if the early morning fog in Krakow was bad enough to stop the outbound aircraft departing.  Would have to see if other flights were operating from Krakow at the same time.

This would be first wave, so the first check would be to see if the 5001 was W6 or W9 operated, if W6 then did this go (it's the flight to Luton).

5000, 7000 and CAVOK (10000+) seems to be present on this morning at relevant times, which would suggest there wasn't an issue with fog, so this may be worth confronting the airline on.

Assuming the OP's flight is W65018 BHX-KRK 0835-1200 the aircraft would indeed be a first wave Krakow departure as W65017 KRK-BHX 0610-0755. 

The W65017 didn't operate on 01/10, and the departure time is right when it was thick fog at Krakow. Question is whether that fog was enough to stop departures or not, and whether that would be an extraordinary circumstance for the subsequent cancellation of the W65018

Can you see how many of the first wave went out on this day? I do have this option but not until I'm in the office.

I wonder secretly if this is anything to do with Wizz's well documented crew shortage rather than weather

bagand96

CKhalvashi said:

bagand96 said:

CKhalvashi said:

bagand96 said:

CKhalvashi said:

Pop them an e-mail asking for METAR reports for the day for both airports and the aircraft type expected to be used on the day.

It pay be worth e-mailing both airports in addition for the requested info, also asking if this was an operational or non-operational cancellation.

If Wizz don't cave, this can then be compared against the performance limits to give you a clear answer.

Historic METARs (Meteorological Aerodrome Reports) can be viewed on this site: https://www.ogimet.com/metars.phtml.en

A quick browse shows a very foggy morning in Krakow on 01/10, but it cleared up later on.  Nothing untoward in Birmingham other than a bit breezy.

I guess it depends if the early morning fog in Krakow was bad enough to stop the outbound aircraft departing.  Would have to see if other flights were operating from Krakow at the same time.

This would be first wave, so the first check would be to see if the 5001 was W6 or W9 operated, if W6 then did this go (it's the flight to Luton).

5000, 7000 and CAVOK (10000+) seems to be present on this morning at relevant times, which would suggest there wasn't an issue with fog, so this may be worth confronting the airline on.

Assuming the OP's flight is W65018 BHX-KRK 0835-1200 the aircraft would indeed be a first wave Krakow departure as W65017 KRK-BHX 0610-0755. 

The W65017 didn't operate on 01/10, and the departure time is right when it was thick fog at Krakow. Question is whether that fog was enough to stop departures or not, and whether that would be an extraordinary circumstance for the subsequent cancellation of the W65018

Can you see how many of the first wave went out on this day? I do have this option but not until I'm in the office.

I wonder secretly if this is anything to do with Wizz's well documented crew shortage rather than weather

I don't have access to anything that's not available to anyone else on the internet and don't have any premium subscriptions to any of the regular sites I'm afraid.  I find http://www.flightera.net very useful but it would be a case of manually going through Wizzair flight numbers for Krakow departures and checking if they operated that day.

CKhalvashi

bagand96 said:

CKhalvashi said:

bagand96 said:

CKhalvashi said:

bagand96 said:

CKhalvashi said:

Pop them an e-mail asking for METAR reports for the day for both airports and the aircraft type expected to be used on the day.

It pay be worth e-mailing both airports in addition for the requested info, also asking if this was an operational or non-operational cancellation.

If Wizz don't cave, this can then be compared against the performance limits to give you a clear answer.

Historic METARs (Meteorological Aerodrome Reports) can be viewed on this site: https://www.ogimet.com/metars.phtml.en

A quick browse shows a very foggy morning in Krakow on 01/10, but it cleared up later on.  Nothing untoward in Birmingham other than a bit breezy.

I guess it depends if the early morning fog in Krakow was bad enough to stop the outbound aircraft departing.  Would have to see if other flights were operating from Krakow at the same time.

This would be first wave, so the first check would be to see if the 5001 was W6 or W9 operated, if W6 then did this go (it's the flight to Luton).

5000, 7000 and CAVOK (10000+) seems to be present on this morning at relevant times, which would suggest there wasn't an issue with fog, so this may be worth confronting the airline on.

Assuming the OP's flight is W65018 BHX-KRK 0835-1200 the aircraft would indeed be a first wave Krakow departure as W65017 KRK-BHX 0610-0755. 

The W65017 didn't operate on 01/10, and the departure time is right when it was thick fog at Krakow. Question is whether that fog was enough to stop departures or not, and whether that would be an extraordinary circumstance for the subsequent cancellation of the W65018

Can you see how many of the first wave went out on this day? I do have this option but not until I'm in the office.

I wonder secretly if this is anything to do with Wizz's well documented crew shortage rather than weather

I don't have access to anything that's not available to anyone else on the internet and don't have any premium subscriptions to any of the regular sites I'm afraid.  I find http://www.flightera.net very useful but it would be a case of manually going through Wizzair flight numbers for Krakow departures and checking if they operated that day.

Thanks, I'll take a look on FR24 when I get into the office (I don't have access to a premium subscription here) and check it as it'll take a lot of the manual work out of it.

bagand96

Actually, had a quick look and Flightera does have a very easy to use flight board feature which enables you to select historic dates Krakow Airport (KRK/EPKK) DEPARTURES (flightera.net)

It looks like on the 01/10/21 there were heavy delays to departures around 0600 (W65017 departure time) although a couple did go on time, only seems to be the BHX that didn't go at all.

CKhalvashi

bagand96 said:

Actually, had a quick look and Flightera does have a very easy to use flight board feature which enables you to select historic dates Krakow Airport (KRK/EPKK) DEPARTURES (flightera.net)

It looks like on the 01/10/21 there were heavy delays to departures around 0600 (W65017 departure time) although a couple did go on time, only seems to be the BHX that didn't go at all.

Thanks Bagand, you've just saved me a job!

In this case, there's no legitimate reason why the flight realistically couldn't have left. Birmingham isn't long enough to bring FTLs into the equation and I believe the airport currently has 7 based aircraft, with only 1 leaving, so maintenance issues can't be blamed either as presumably the aircraft could have been changed.

danlightbulb

Thanks all for the research. I'm not sure what some of it means but I'll try and dig into it and document some stuff down.

We saw on the day that other flights were leaving Krakow, either on time or slightly delayed. However as you've discovered, this Wizzair flight just kept getting pushed back then eventually it was cancelled altogether having, it seems, never departed at all.

It was then rescheduled for the next day. However if the fog lifted from Krakow on the same morning as it appeared, then the flight should just have been late, not cancelled. So I think we're right not to accept this excuse.

Also keep in mind that Wizzair already offered us the compensation, saying we were eligible (we have in writing), and now have backed out of it. This must carry some significant weight also I would think.

How do we construct our case back to Wizzair on this? I clearly have some strong facts and we may take it all the way to small claims. But should I try something like Resolver first? We had to go through the Wizzair claim procedure initially which we did do, so can we now switch to something higher profile?