JET2 Delayed flight

annie12

Our flight to Tenerife was delayed by nearly 4 hours in May. JET2 have rejected our claim and said the following:-

We would like to apologise once more for the delay to your flight. However, your flight would not have incurred a delay over three hours if it wasn’t for the unprecedented level of disruption caused by external factors and parties that were beyond the control of Jet2.com.

 

As the delay to your flight was caused by extraordinary circumstances which could not have been avoided despite all of the reasonable measures we had taken, compensation is not payable pursuant to Article 5 (3) of the Regulation.

 Our flight was delayed by about 50 mins when we were told to board. About a third of the plane had boarded when people started being turned away....the flight was going to Turkey not Tenerife!

We were given a new gate and then had to wait for all the bags to be offloaded and reloaded onto our flight. 

Should I take this further or is there no point?

annie12

To add to my post above, I didn't read the Jet2 reply properly!
It was so long I think I skim read it. 

This is the full reply - 

We always strive to operate on time and provide an excellent level of customer service. Unfortunately, there are occasions where disruption beyond the control of Jet2.com takes place and delays cannot be avoided. Despite widescale disruption and the huge number of cancellations that have been reported by other airlines, we have avoided flight cancellations and have implemented all reasonable measures to minimise the level of unavoidable delays that have taken place in what has been an extraordinarily challenging operating environment.

 

Nevertheless, we recognise the inconvenience a flight delay can cause and before we go on to address your claim for compensation, may we first express our sincere apologies for any inconvenience you experienced.

 

Law on flight delay claims

 

EC Regulation 261/2004, as incorporated into UK law (which we will refer to as the Regulation in this email) provides air passengers with certain rights.

 

Such rights include potential entitlement to compensation in the event of a flight cancellation or an arrival delay in excess of 3 hours, but it is important to understand that an airline is not liable to pay compensation under the Regulation where the cancellation or delay was caused by extraordinary circumstances which could not have been avoided even if all reasonable measures had been taken. An extraordinary circumstance is something which is beyond the airline’s control.

 

Although we do appreciate that passengers will each have their own experience of a delay and personal circumstances, the Regulation is a uniform application.

 

Proactive measures taken during the pandemic

 

As you will only be too aware, the pandemic and the Government’s restrictions on travel meant that we, like other airlines, were unable to operate for extensive periods of time.

 

Whilst our aircraft remained grounded and restrictions on travel continued, we did not lose sight of our core values. We worked tirelessly and invested extensively into the business in eager anticipation of the restrictions easing and the opportunity to provide you, and all of our passengers, with a well-deserved holiday and a high-quality service.

 

To achieve this aim, we adopted a proactive rather than reactive approach to our operations. We ensured that we maintained the correct levels of staffing, resources and training throughout the pandemic. Despite ongoing levels of uncertainty, we also commenced the recruitment of staff early, in 2021, in anticipation of an increase in operations.

 

These measures ensured that (following the removal of restrictions) we were well resourced and able to implement an efficient and smooth return to a high volume of operations. In addition to the above, we also ensured that we had added resilience in our fleet, with six standby aircraft and crew in place. This is the most standby aircraft we have ever had.

 

External factors causing disruption

 

Unfortunately, whilst we were well prepared, a large number of other airlines and third parties (including Airports, ground handlers and fuel suppliers, for example) were not well resourced. This issue has been exacerbated by a challenging labour market as well as further external issues, such as delays in security passes being issued by public authorities.

 

The lack of resources encountered by these third parties has, in turn, caused an extraordinary level of disruption at airports throughout the country (as has been widely reported by the media). Such issues include significant queues at airport security, services to passengers with reduced mobility provided by the airport, ground handling delays and the breakdown in airport infrastructure such as baggage belts becoming inundated with luggage carried by other airlines, which has caused extensive delays and disruption.

 

In addition to the above, and whilst these issues have been ongoing, there have been further challenges to operations. For example, there has been extensive congestion and restrictions caused by Air Traffic Control (ATC) management decisions across Europe. This, in part, has been caused by a significant area of airspace being closed over Russia and Ukraine, causing flights to re-route across central Europe (causing additional traffic), as well as there being capacity issues and a shortage of Air Traffic Controllers in certain sections of Europe. This has resulted in a high volume of slot delays being issued by ATC, adding to further levels of delay and disruption.

 

We have, on the whole, been able to mitigate a significant amount of the disruption encountered. For instance, due to the strategies and investments we made, we had over 2,200 colleagues in our UK airports, who have worked relentlessly and played a key role in minimising the level of disruption caused by external parties.

 

This has enabled us to avoid cancelling flights and keep delays to a minimum. However, given the unprecedented scale of the disruption that has taken place, there has been an inevitable and unavoidable impact on our operations, including delays to our flights being incurred. The delay to operations, caused by the external factors referenced above, meant that your flight could not operate until the crew had undertaken their minimum rest period in line with safety and legislative requirements. Your flight was subsequently operated as soon as feasibly possible.

 

We would like to apologise once more for the delay to your flight. However, your flight would not have incurred a delay over three hours if it wasn’t for the unprecedented level of disruption caused by external factors and parties that were beyond the control of Jet2.com.

 

As the delay to your flight was caused by extraordinary circumstances which could not have been avoided despite all of the reasonable measures we had taken, compensation is not payable pursuant to Article 5 (3) of the Regulation.

 

We apologise for the length of this correspondence. However, we felt it was important to highlight the extent of the issues that have been experienced and the measures that we implemented to minimise the level of disruption. We hope that our correspondence has been of assistance in clarifying our position. Notwithstanding the above, should you disagree with our position then you are able to register your complaint with the aviation regulator, the CAA, at www.caa.co.uk.

 

Reimbursement of Receipts

 

If you incurred any expenses as a result of the delay to your flight which you would like to claim back from us (such as re-routing costs, food and drink, or overnight accommodation) then please complete the following form: https://www.jet2.com/expenses-claim-form. Please remember to quote your claim reference number and attach any supporting receipts.

 

Thank you once again for taking the time to contact us.

 

Your sincerely,
Legal Services Team

So, Jet2 are saying it wasn't safe to fly until the crew had undertaken their minimum rest period.

Does that count as extraordinary circumstances?

eskbanker

Jet2 have been issuing that lengthy boilerplate to many claimants, in the hope that they won't read it all and will be put off, but only tiny fragments of it will actually be relevant to any individual claim.

It's difficult to generalise about what constitutes extraordinary circumstances, so in this case you'd probably need to push them on why the crew weren't adequately rested at the scheduled time of departure and why there weren't other crew available, which, depending on whether this was one of their main UK bases, wouldn't be an unreasonable expectation.

dave1814

eskbanker said:

Jet2 have been issuing that lengthy boilerplate to many claimants, in the hope that they won't read it all and will be put off, but only tiny fragments of it will actually be relevant to any individual claim.

It's difficult to generalise about what constitutes extraordinary circumstances, so in this case you'd probably need to push them on why the crew weren't adequately rested at the scheduled time of departure and why there weren't other crew available, which, depending on whether this was one of their main UK bases, wouldn't be an unreasonable expectation.

Any emails I have sent asking questions have, so far, been ignored. 

eskbanker

dave1814 said:

eskbanker said:

Jet2 have been issuing that lengthy boilerplate to many claimants, in the hope that they won't read it all and will be put off, but only tiny fragments of it will actually be relevant to any individual claim.

It's difficult to generalise about what constitutes extraordinary circumstances, so in this case you'd probably need to push them on why the crew weren't adequately rested at the scheduled time of departure and why there weren't other crew available, which, depending on whether this was one of their main UK bases, wouldn't be an unreasonable expectation.

Any emails I have sent asking questions have, so far, been ignored. 

It's unclear whether they regard their generic template letter as representing their final position, in that they do advise those who are still unhappy to go to the CAA, so it's possible that they're not prepared to get bogged down in extensive further debate.  OP could just go back to them along the lines of 'I don't believe that constitutes exceptional circumstances and therefore I'll be escalating to the CAA in 14/28 days if I don't hear anything further from you', but there aren't really many other options open - for those who are sufficiently convinced of their case there's always small claims, but it's in Jet2's interests to leave things vague, so it's unclear how strong OP's argument is without further information that'll potentially be difficult to get hold of....

annie12

We had a similar situation in March with TUI, Pilot said it was waiting for cleaners and also the problems at the airport.
Put in the claim, said they couldn't find us on the flight so I sent the boarding passes off. A couple of weeks later the money was in the bank!

Why are Jet2 so intent on not paying out?!

JPears

Jet2 have always been ardent opposers of EC261/2004.

After Huzar kicked their butt in court, they eased off and were a bit morecompliant.

It looks as though the Yorkshire stubborness has returned.

You will need to go CAA (with a seperate letter of complaint about Jet2's blanket response to the majority) or go direct to small claims court.

Suzycoll

JPears. i tried to go to CAA after Jet2 turned down my claim but CAA said I couldn't as not a member of ?? (not sure what) 

annie12

The blanket response doesn't apply I don't think.
Our delay ended up being because the bags had to be offloaded from the Turkey flight and reloaded onto the correct flight (Tenerife)

eskbanker

annie12 said:

The blanket response doesn't apply I don't think.
Our delay ended up being because the bags had to be offloaded from the Turkey flight and reloaded onto the correct flight (Tenerife)

Yes, I thought that the wording about crew rest was inserted to relate specifically to 'explain' the delay to your flight, but it does seem to be exactly the same generic wording as included on other similar missives, so as you say, it doesn't apply here if the actual reason for the delay was a change of aircraft.  If you're confident that you have enough evidence of that, then you can escalate to CAA or small claims if Jet2 fails to respond with anything more specific.

Suzycoll said:

JPears. i tried to go to CAA after Jet2 turned down my claim but CAA said I couldn't as not a member of ?? (not sure what) 

Surely your CAA approach was rejected on the grounds that it wasn't a departure from the UK (unlike OP's, presumably)?

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6386200/jet-2-rejecting-claim-for-a-delayed-flight-and-next-action-please

annie12

An update -  on 28/10/22 I emailed asking for precicise and exact details as to why the flight was delayed.
On 09/11/22 I received an email saying they were going to pay compensation.
On 22/12/22 I received the cheques in the post!

Thank you to everyone for your help.