EasyJet cancels flights and refuse to book alternative flights.

jeffcarolt

EasyJet has cancelled my flight to Madrid (we have tickets for a festival), there are no other easyJet flights and easyJet are refusing to offer me any other carrier options, as they said the flights are over 20 days away so they don’t have to. Not sure where I stand, I can get a refund, but feel that EasyJet are not following CAA rules? Thoughts please.

elsien

If they cancel outside of the 14 days they don’t have any responsibility do they? 

jeffcarolt

Not sure, that is certainly the case for compensation, but we are not after any, but I’m not sure that applies to booking alternative flights. The CAA rules are not exactly clear on it either.

sheramber

According to Bott & co \
Bott and Co is a multiple award-winning No Win No Fee solicitors based in Wilmslow, Cheshire. We are proud of our experience and particular expertise in flight delay compensation, mis-sold car finance claims, road traffic accident claims and specialist consumer claims.

Can I Claim Compensation For Flight Cancellations Made 14 Days Before Departure?

If a flight is cancelled more than 14 days before it is due to depart, the airline is responsible for providing you with a full refund.

The airline may offer you an alternative flight, either on their airline or another airline. This is known as re-routing.

https://www.bottonline.co.uk/flight-delay-compensation/claim-guides/flight-cancellation-compensation#:~:text=If a flight is cancelled,is known as re-routing.

jeffcarolt

sheramber said:

According to Bott & co \
Bott and Co is a multiple award-winning No Win No Fee solicitors based in Wilmslow, Cheshire. We are proud of our experience and particular expertise in flight delay compensation, mis-sold car finance claims, road traffic accident claims and specialist consumer claims.

Can I Claim Compensation For Flight Cancellations Made 14 Days Before Departure?

If a flight is cancelled more than 14 days before it is due to depart, the airline is responsible for providing you with a full refund.

The airline may offer you an alternative flight, either on their airline or another airline. This is known as re-routing.

https://www.bottonline.co.uk/flight-delay-compensation/claim-guides/flight-cancellation-compensation#:~:text=If a flight is cancelled,is known as re-routing.

Thanks for that, they have offered a full refund or a voucher, plus looked as other EasyJet flight (none were suitable), but they refused the "re-routing" with another airline. The wording is the issue I think, "The airline may offer...". 

longjohnjohnson

jeffcarolt said:

sheramber said:

According to Bott & co \
Bott and Co is a multiple award-winning No Win No Fee solicitors based in Wilmslow, Cheshire. We are proud of our experience and particular expertise in flight delay compensation, mis-sold car finance claims, road traffic accident claims and specialist consumer claims.

Can I Claim Compensation For Flight Cancellations Made 14 Days Before Departure?

If a flight is cancelled more than 14 days before it is due to depart, the airline is responsible for providing you with a full refund.

The airline may offer you an alternative flight, either on their airline or another airline. This is known as re-routing.

https://www.bottonline.co.uk/flight-delay-compensation/claim-guides/flight-cancellation-compensation#:~:text=If a flight is cancelled,is known as re-routing.

Thanks for that, they have offered a full refund or a voucher, plus looked as other EasyJet flight (none were suitable), but they refused the "re-routing" with another airline. The wording is the issue I think, "The airline may offer...". 

Exactly, it is at their discretion.

You need to take the refund and find an alternate route.

eskbanker

jeffcarolt said:
The wording is the issue I think, "The airline may offer...". 

But that's not the right wording (in the sense that it's just a third party site rather than a direct quote from legislation) - when cancelling flights, regardless of how far in advance, the airline is obliged to offer the customer a choice between refund or rerouting.

This obligation arises from the EU EC261/2004 regulations, which are incorporated into UK law via The Air Passenger Rights and Air Travel Organisers’ Licensing (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019, and these are clear:

Article 8

Right to reimbursement or re-routing

1. Where reference is made to this Article, passengers shall be offered the choice between:

(a) - reimbursement within seven days, by the means provided for in Article 7(3), of the full cost of the ticket at the price at which it was bought, for the part or parts of the journey not made, and for the part or parts already made if the flight is no longer serving any purpose in relation to the passenger's original travel plan, together with, when relevant,

- a return flight to the first point of departure, at the earliest opportunity;

(b) re-routing, under comparable transport conditions, to their final destination at the earliest opportunity; or

(c) re-routing, under comparable transport conditions, to their final destination at a later date at the passenger's convenience, subject to availability of seats.

This wording is reproduced almost verbatim in EasyJet's own document: Notice of your rights in case of flight delays, cancellations and denied boarding | easyJet

To me the CAA are clear as well, at https://www.caa.co.uk/passengers/resolving-travel-problems/delays-and-cancellations/cancellations/

Rearranging your flight

If your cancelled is covered by UK law, your airline must let you choose between two options:

1. Receive a refund

You can get your money back for all parts of the ticket you haven’t used. For instance, if you have booked a return flight and the outbound leg is cancelled, you can get the full cost of the return ticket back from your airline.
If you are a transfer passenger and you have already completed part of your journey, you are also entitled to a flight back to your original departure point when your connecting flight is cancelled and you decide not to continue your journey.

2. Choose an alternative flight

If you still want to travel, your airline must find you an alternative flight. It’s up to you whether to fly as soon as possible after the cancelled flight, or at a later date that suits you.
Although most airlines will book you onto another of their flights to the same destination, if an alternative airline is flying there significantly sooner or other suitable modes of transport are available then you may have the right to be booked onto that alternative transport instead. You can discuss this with your airline.

and this is also echoed at https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/travel/flight-delays/#section-3

The right to compensation, where the 14 days advance notice is significant, is a completely separate issue....

jeffcarolt

eskbanker said:

jeffcarolt said:
The wording is the issue I think, "The airline may offer...". 

But that's not the right wording (in the sense that it's just a third party site rather than a direct quote from legislation) - when cancelling flights, regardless of how far in advance, the airline is obliged to offer the customer a choice between refund or rerouting.

Thank for that, I'll look a bit further into the details you posted. The wording I found was on the CAA website:
https://www.caa.co.uk/passengers/resolving-travel-problems/delays-and-cancellations/cancellations/

"Although most airlines will book you onto another of their flights to the same destination, if an alternative airline is flying there significantly sooner or other suitable modes of transport are available then you may have the right to be booked onto that alternative transport instead. You can discuss this with your airline."

So the wording wasn't exact but "may" is in the statement which is why I asked the question. However it looks as if you've found something more definitive so thank you very much. Back into round 2 with EasyJet then. 

TELLIT01

Without seeing all the legislation surrounding this subject it's impossible to provide a definitive answer.  Every post so far has just posted small sections of the legislation and it's easy for information out of context to be misleading.

user1977

Rerouting obviously depends on availability of alternative routes - and I presume there's some element of reasonableness implied (e.g. they're not obliged to take you on a round-the-world trip if that's the only way of getting to your destination by air). Though I presume in the OP's case there is likely to be other availability for getting to Madrid on the same date.

jeffcarolt

TELLIT01 said:

Without seeing all the legislation surrounding this subject it's impossible to provide a definitive answer.  Every post so far has just posted small sections of the legislation and it's easy for information out of context to be misleading.

That's why this forum exists. So the people in the know can inform those of us who may not have the same knowledge. eskbanker above appears to have found the right nuggets of info I needed to at least make a claim. But thanks for your input anyway.