Escalating a flight delay claim... Resolver or ADR??

Nikiya

Yesterday I filled two EasyJet forms for a 20 hour delay flight.
Today I received an email confirming they would refund the expenses (a small sum) and another one denying the ¨regulatory compensation¨.
No reason was given other than ¨you are not entitled¨ and then ¨please not that under the regulation¨ and a list of who can make the claim.

I am the lead booker and I made the claim, as confirmed by the rules they copied, so it makes no sense.
But it is a ¨no reply¨ mail so I believe the only way is to escalate.

Now, this site directs you to the ¨Resolver¨ tool, while the CCA tells you to go through ADRs.
I do not think I can do both, and at least the ADR form is quite time consuming.
I would be grateful for any pointers.

eskbanker

As highlighted on your other thread, Resolver is a waste of time - it's just a more convoluted way of reaching the same recipients, whereas ADR is a separate arbitration service that would be a valid escalation route.

However, it's probably worth pursuing EasyJet for a proper answer as to why they're declining your compensation claim - the most common reason is citing extraordinary circumstances beyond the airline's control, but it's not unheard of for airlines to try it on and assert that a delay was due to such a scenario when the underlying reason didn't fit that.  What were you told at the time about why the delay occurred?

https://www.easyjet.com/en/help/contact

Nikiya

We were never given a reason. Besides the 20 hour delay, the way they handled it was a mess... the flight was on a Thursday at 5.30pm, delayed for Friday at one pm a few hours before, so we were supposed to be picked up at 8.30. 
But there was a rumour amongst the passengers that it had been postponed again. Nobody confirmed it but at some point the airline site showed the flight as departing at 2pm.
We ended up leaving shortly before 4pm and when the crew (finally) appeared they covered their backs claiming they had arrived 12 hours before and needed 12 hours' rest before they could fly.
So the delay flight was delayed again, and the airline behaved shamefully.
Of course you cannot claim compensation for all that. I wish I could at least repor them for lack of consideration and organisation.

eskbanker

As you recognise, there are two separate issues at play here, i.e. the extent to which you're legally entitled to compensation under the regulations, and your unhappiness with how the delay was handled and communicated on the ground.

For the former, it's probably premature to escalate without at least seeking a meaningful explanation of the exact grounds for them rejecting your claim - if you don't know the reason for the delay then it's going to come down to your word against theirs, so worth trying to establish the strength of your case before taking it any further.  There are (rightly) strict regulations about flight crews and rest periods, but there's often a case to be made that airlines should employ more people to avoid this inconveniencing passengers, which is easier to make it the issue arose when flying from, say, Luton or Gatwick, rather than a distant outpost of their network.

The latter issue is perhaps worth pursuing via their complaints process if you feel strongly that they could/should have done better.

Nikiya

The only reason why a 20 hour delay claim might not be valid is ¨extraordinary circumstances¨, which is not the case and was not even mentioned in their message.
As for complaining to Easyjet... are you serious??? If they reply at all you will get an oven-ready message.
They even wiggle out, if they can, of their legal obligations, they don't give a hoot about anything else.

eskbanker

Nikiya said:

The only reason why a 20 hour delay claim might not be valid is ¨extraordinary circumstances¨, which is not the case and was not even mentioned in their message.

How do you know extraordinary circumstances weren't applicable?  You said you "were never given a reason" at the time so if the airline hasn't subsequently specified why they're declining your claim then it seemed sensible to me to clarify with them what their reasoning is, before taking things any further - if you go to ADR then you'd need to have some sort of evidence that the reason for the delay wasn't extraordinary circumstances if that's what the airline claims.

Nikiya said:

As for complaining to Easyjet... are you serious??? If they reply at all you will get an oven-ready message.
They even wiggle out, if they can, of their legal obligations, they don't give a hoot about anything else.

I'm not suggesting that it would be particularly productive, but was simply highlighting that there aren't really any other options, i.e. I agree with your assessment that "I wish I could at least repor them for lack of consideration and organisation" and don't know of anywhere else you can go other than complaining to the organisation you're unhappy with, which would generally be the first step anyway even if there was any escalation option for that sort of service issue.

Nikiya

¨How do you know extraordinary circumstances weren't applicable? "
For one, if you check the list of extraordinary circumstances. they are all pretty obvious.
There was no political upheaval, no strikes that particular day, no natural disasters, etc.
Besides, if there WERE EC they would have been mentioned in the ridiculous reply I got, instead sending me a list of conditions that were already met.

Westin

Weather issues on route, ATC flow restrictions….?

You haven’t mentioned your flight details so we just don’t know.   

eskbanker

Nikiya said:

¨How do you know extraordinary circumstances weren't applicable? "
For one, if you check the list of extraordinary circumstances. they are all pretty obvious.
There was no political upheaval, no strikes that particular day, no natural disasters, etc.
Besides, if there WERE EC they would have been mentioned in the ridiculous reply I got, instead sending me a list of conditions that were already met.

Well ultimately it's up to you what you do, so you're obviously free to ignore advice given on here, but it's generally better to have a sounder basis than guesswork when escalating anything, and in particular Aviation ADR require you to have gone through the defined steps of an airline's complaints process before referring to them, so you'd be wasting your time (and theirs) trying to involve them at this stage.

Alan_Bowen

Which? magazine has produced some interesting statistics regarding success and failure rates using Aviation ADR. easyjet customers won in 39% of cases, only 29% of Ryanair customers did so and only 14% of TUI passengers were successful. There may be a number of reasons, TUI may settle more cases before ADR and only allow what they think are hopeless cases to go to ADR so most customers lose, but clearly Aviation ADR is not a walkover. 

It appears to be run by LBC's "consumer champion" Dean Dunham (his words not mine) but consumers are clearly not always the winner when they go down this route