Stuck overnight in Athens airport

StevieD54

Our group of 6 had an horrendous experience last weekend.  To cut a very long story short, the incoming Easyjet flight from Manchester was so late, our flight back had to be cancelled until the following afternoon.  We spent 24 hours in the airport sleeping on the the floor and various benches.  Easyjet offered no help whatsoever, no hotel accommodation, not even food vouchers.  I’ve complained to Easyjet via email and just had their reply, which effectively said forget it, no compensation due. They quoted the old ‘extraordinary circumstances’ get out clause.

Now on this MSE site I’ve seen this……
Airlines have to provide assistance such as food, phone calls and accommodation (where there's an overnight delay) to passengers whose flight has been cancelled, regardless of what caused the cancellation.

Does anyone on here have definite knowledge that this MSE statement is actually the law?  And if so, what can we actually claim for?  We slept on the airport floor (a few lucky passengers were found hotels for the night), so didn’t incur costs as such.  The important phrase here is ‘ regardless of what caused the cancellation’, which of course would negate easyJet’s attempt to refuse compensation by quoting ‘extraordinary circumstances’.

thanks in advance 

Sandtree

Expenses and compensation are separate things, compensation requires there to be some blame of the airline. 

Did you keep any evidence of the expenses you had? If not then the point is rather moot.

StevieD54

Sandtree said:

Expenses and compensation are separate things

Errr, yes obviously.  But my point was: is that MSE statement regarding airline’s obligations REGARDLESS of the cause of the cancellation correct?  If it is, surely Easyjet are obliged to at least explain to me why they chose to totally disregard the regulations?

Westin

No matter the cause you are entitled to what is termed a 'duty of care' from the airline for such a delay.  This would typically cover for accommodation (if an overnight delay) plus a reasonable allowance for food/drinks over meal times, plus I think two telephone calls home.   If hotel and meals were not provided then providing you have receipts you can make a claim to the airline for these costs.  These would all be your delay expenses.

Compensation for the delay is a separate matter. Pay out will depend on how longer your delayed arrival was and the reason for the delay. Not all delays qualify for a compensation pay out.

There is information on the EasyJet website telling you how to claim. Either for expenses incurred whilst delayed, or compensation for the delay.

If you just wrote a complaint to EasyJet I suspect they really had no idea what you wanted (other than the obvious and to vent).  An upsetting experience but you now need to remove the emotion and the complaint text and just focus on submitting a claim (following the correct process).

You should have been given a copy of your passenger rights at ATH or at least pointed to where you could find them.  They are on the EasyJet website. Some airports also have printed posters.

Sandtree

StevieD54 said:

Sandtree said:

Expenses and compensation are separate things

Errr, yes obviously.  But my point was: is that MSE statement regarding airline’s obligations REGARDLESS of the cause of the cancellation correct?  If it is, surely Easyjet are obliged to at least explain to me why they chose to totally disregard the regulations?

No, because the duty of care can be discharged by refunding the customer what they spent on reasonable accommodation, food etc after the event. Hence restate the question which you ignored... do you have the receipts for what you spent? If you do then copies of the receipts should be submitted with a covering letter/email to say these are expense claims in lieu of anything being provided on the ground for the delay. 

If you didn't keep receipts then you can only ask for a goodwill gesture but budget airlines are not known for their goodwill. 

Brie

Sandtree said:

 

If you didn't keep receipts then you can only ask for a goodwill gesture but budget airlines are not known for their goodwill. 

If you don't have receipts you could provide a copy of a credit card statement highlighting the payments made.  For anything missing I would request the standard business expense rates used by some major companies - £10 for breakfast, £15 for lunch and £25 for dinner.

And once you've got that sorted I'd then complain about their lack of service and the fact they didn't fullfill basic requirements of care after cancelling with essentially no notice.

Sandtree

Brie said:

Sandtree said:

 

If you didn't keep receipts then you can only ask for a goodwill gesture but budget airlines are not known for their goodwill. 

If you don't have receipts you could provide a copy of a credit card statement highlighting the payments made.  For anything missing I would request the standard business expense rates used by some major companies - £10 for breakfast, £15 for lunch and £25 for dinner.

And once you've got that sorted I'd then complain about their lack of service and the fact they didn't fullfill basic requirements of care after cancelling with essentially no notice.

Would love to know where you will find standard business expense rates and how you justify the claim should be at the maximum level allowed? As they always say, its a limit not a target!

Current client is very generous, all flights are business class, all trains first class and with them lunch is £10 and dinner £20 so your values may be optimistic and also proves the difficulty of getting a number. They wont pay for breakfast but all their hotel rates are B&B so no separate breakfast number.

Brie

@Sandtree
those were the rates used by my employers - very large UK companies - so I assumed they are fairly standard.  Another previous employer allowed £25 total per day - but that was in the late 1990s so I assume the rate might have gone up since then.

Sandtree

Brie said:

@Sandtree
those were the rates used by my employers - very large UK companies - so I assumed they are fairly standard.  Another previous employer allowed £25 total per day - but that was in the late 1990s so I assume the rate might have gone up since then.

No, they've gone the other way as companies have become more cost conscious... you can see the co-op's policy here https://colleagues.coop.co.uk/travel-and-expenses-policy which is £7 breakfast, nothing for lunch and £20 for dinner. These are spelled out very clearly as the maximum you can claim and you should be aiming to be under the amount wherever possible.

Upsidedownandaround

StevieD54 said:

Sandtree said:

Expenses and compensation are separate things

Errr, yes obviously.  But my point was: is that MSE statement regarding airline’s obligations REGARDLESS of the cause of the cancellation correct?  If it is, surely Easyjet are obliged to at least explain to me why they chose to totally disregard the regulations?

I think we all know the answer to that. 

Unfortunately airlines, in particular EasyJet, and airports are all extremely short staffed and dealing with delays and cancellations left, right and centre.

It sounds like all you are actually entitled to is reasonable expenses but it’s not actually clear if you had any expenses or not.

If you had no expenses then all you can really do is put in a complaint to EasyJet addressing the issues you experienced without receiving any assistance from them and maybe see if they will provide some goodwill gesture.

Unfortunately at the moment people really need to have a plan B and be proactive at the moment for dealing with delays and cancellation as you can’t expect to receive assistance from the airlines at the moment.

sammynunes

How odd in these days of the internet and smart phones that someone would sleep in an airport rather than go through the simple process of organising a hotel.