Help pls - luton melting runway. Flight cancelled -what to do?

DIYhelp76

Sorry, very grateful for any concise quick advice. My friend is at Luton Airport. The runway melted in heat and his flight is cancelled.  He - and no doubt several hundred others trying to find out what to do.  Please can anyone advise?  Is he entitled to hotel accommodation, assuming the flight might take off tomorrow instead, if not later today (which currently seems unlikely).

Many thx in advance

DIYhelp76

DIYhelp76 said:

Sorry, very grateful for any concise quick advice. My friend is at Luton Airport. The runway melted in heat and his flight is cancelled.  He - and no doubt several hundred others trying to find out what to do.  Please can anyone advise?  Is he entitled to hotel accommodation, assuming the flight might take off tomorrow instead, if not later today (which currently seems unlikely).

Many thx in advance

If the airline offer him a flight tomorrow, presumably they are obliged to offer overnight accommodation in a hotel.  If the delay is longer than this, what is he entitled to?  He lives a long distance from the airport if he has to go back home and travel again for another flight on another day.

onashoestring

Your Friend should wait for the airline for an update - watch on their website or twitter feed for latest news . It’s quite possible that the airline will arrange to transport passengers to another London airport for a flight later today. 

If the flight doesn’t go today then he will be entitled to accommodation- the airline may arrange this for all passengers .

eskbanker

Point him in the direction of the likes of https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/travel/flight-delays/#stuckatairport (or the underlying legislation, the EU version of which is at https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/en/TXT/?uri=celex:32004R0261) while he's waiting, to understand what he's entitled to....

onashoestring

@DIYhelp76 an update please , did you friend get to their destination ? 

Lupus_Lou

Hi
Can I piggyback onto this instead of starting a new thread - I am happy to start a new thread if the mods prefer that

My flight was also cancelled from Luton yesterday - it was an Easyjet flight to Malaga

Unfortunately it was booked as part of a Tui package holiday therefore a 3rd party booking..however

We have now re booked another holiday with Tui on Thursday to Gran Canaria  so all is not lost. The alternative holiday is an extra £2100. (again, flying with Easyjet  )
I am not expecting Easyjet to cover this and of course our travel insurance doesn't cover cancellations, it is next to impossible to find insurance covering cancellations due to my husband and sons chronic health issues. 

But - back in April, I logged onto the Easyjet site and paid £197 for extra leg room seats and additional baggage. Obviously I want to reclaim this.
I spoke to someone at Easyjet this morning and she told me to upload my taxi receipt from last night (£47) but was vague on the refund of the additional flight charges and there is nowhere of the form to claim these back

Will these be automatically refunded or do I have to make a different type of claim?

I can't transfer thise benefits to my new flight as the seats etc aren't available. I booked and paid for the luggage allowance 

Has anyone had a similar experience and able to advise?

Also, is there a time limit on claiming or can it wait until I come back from holiday? (although TBH I am fully expecting that to be cancelled as well) 

Further to the advice above- there was extremely limited internet access at Luton yesterday - either mobile/roaming or via the Luton Airport wifi - probably just the sheer number of people trying to find out what was going on

DIYhelp76

Hi,

Thanks for the replies - been busy all week, so first time I've been able to come back online.

My friend ended up having to book another flight himself from Stansted the following day with different airline.  There were only 3 Easyjet staff at a desk at Luton and hundreds of people in a queue trying to get help at the time.  The word was that Easyjet had no alternative flights to offer from Luton until 3 days later.  We spent ages looking online for alternative flights, Eurostar and buses - but nothing. He needed to be there urgently due to other plans.

So he paid over £300 for a flight with different airline, from different airport the following day. This was day 2 of 40 degrees, so no trains, so I had to drive him to airport - with petrol and time incurred.  He had already incurred high train costs to get to Luton for his original cancelled flight.

Easyjet have declined compensation for the cancellation, saying it was due to extraordinary circumstances (runway melting). However, other flights left Luton that afternoon when the runway reopened. Simon Calder was on TV saying that everyone who should have flown from Luton had been flown - but my friend (and presumably others) were told there were no flights for 3 days. Why then, should Easyjet not have to pay compensation?  Especially as other flights took off and we understand the runway was only closed for a couple of hours.

The good news is Easyjet seem to have refunded the £300 cost of the new flight. But they have turned down £30 petrol for getting him to the alternative airport.  I don't think he claimed for the original train costs to Luton for the flight that was cancelled.  Can he pursue one or both of these extra expenses?  Again, he has travel insurance but i guess the excess will mean it's not worthwhile pursuing a claim there.

Many thx.

DIYhelp76

Reading around on this forum, I saw reference to another site "Aviation ADR" - might it be worth making a claim through them for the petrol/train costs?  

bagand96

DIYhelp76 said:

Hi,

Thanks for the replies - been busy all week, so first time I've been able to come back online.

My friend ended up having to book another flight himself from Stansted the following day with different airline.  There were only 3 Easyjet staff at a desk at Luton and hundreds of people in a queue trying to get help at the time.  The word was that Easyjet had no alternative flights to offer from Luton until 3 days later.  We spent ages looking online for alternative flights, Eurostar and buses - but nothing. He needed to be there urgently due to other plans.

So he paid over £300 for a flight with different airline, from different airport the following day. This was day 2 of 40 degrees, so no trains, so I had to drive him to airport - with petrol and time incurred.  He had already incurred high train costs to get to Luton for his original cancelled flight.

Easyjet have declined compensation for the cancellation, saying it was due to extraordinary circumstances (runway melting). However, other flights left Luton that afternoon when the runway reopened. Simon Calder was on TV saying that everyone who should have flown from Luton had been flown - but my friend (and presumably others) were told there were no flights for 3 days. Why then, should Easyjet not have to pay compensation?  Especially as other flights took off and we understand the runway was only closed for a couple of hours.

The good news is Easyjet seem to have refunded the £300 cost of the new flight. But they have turned down £30 petrol for getting him to the alternative airport.  I don't think he claimed for the original train costs to Luton for the flight that was cancelled.  Can he pursue one or both of these extra expenses?  Again, he has travel insurance but i guess the excess will mean it's not worthwhile pursuing a claim there.

Many thx.

The problem is that with even with a runway closure of just a couple of hours, it will throw the airlines schedules into chaos because so many aircraft and crew will be out of position. Inevitably some flights will be cancelled to recover operations.

I'm inclined to say easyJet are right here that compensation isn't payable as the cause of the cancellation was outside of their control. Its good to see that they've agreed to pay the cost of the replacement flight quickly (as they have to!) 

I don't see how your friend can claim for the train ticket to Luton. How you travel to the airport of departure is nothing to do with easyjet. There'd certainly be an argument that they should reimburse transport LTN-LGW but I'm not so sure given the flight was the next day and you drove him. 

DIYhelp76

Thanks for your reply. I'm not so sure their refusal to pay the transport costs is fair. As a direct result of the cancellation my friend had to pay an extra train fare to get home that day (luckily there was a train running at that time and route), though I still had to pick him up late evening from the train station. The following day he wouldn't have been able to get to Stansted as the trains had all been cancelled, so the only way was for me to drive him (or he could have got a taxi but that would have been much more expensive!).  We did look for alternative flights from Luton the same day or the next day but there was absolutely nothing available.