Aer Lingus Persistent Delays From MAN

jdybnsn

Yesterday we had the mis fortune to fly MAN to BGI with Aer Lingus.
We were supposed to fly at 11am but did not  start boarding the aircraft till 14.30pm. We were ready to fly at 15.15 when they announced a problem with the tow vehicle and we could not get off the stand and into the air until  16.30pm.

Initially, during our wait in the lounge, they told us there had been minor technical problems needing checking before boarding - but I strongly suspect that the plane was late arriving - possibly from Orlando ?
We make no time up during the journey and arrived 4.5 hours late -....only to sit on the runway a further 30minutes as they had a power failure and could not open the cabin doors ! 
So over 5 hours late in the end.

Following this dreadful experience I happened to come across multiple complaints on a Disney based forum whereby it was clear the Aer Lingus MAN - MCO was almost constantly running with 3 hour + delays that never caught themselves up since around June this year. 

I have put in a compensation claim but I have a sinking feeling that they won't be paying out as how could this airline possibly keep afloat if it was meeting compensation claims on this scale as it is clear many Orlando customer were repeatedly suffering 4 hour+ delays.

I also read that if a plane arrives late from another destination then this is classed as an extrodinary circumstance - whilst it was not the reason given to us on the day - is this true ? If so, surely it can't be right that this airline is being allowed to get away with showing  such a complete disregard to passengers customer service if it blatantly flies in late for its next pick, knowingly causing repeated significant delays each time ?.
If for some reason they can't catch up these knock on delays,  then why do they not just state later departure times to save everyone the painful hang-about at the airport ?

Interested to know if anyone has brought a successful delay compensation claim or  similar experience regarding this airline recently ?

eskbanker

Personally I wouldn't waste any time or effort trying to work out how often they pay compensation and whether it's sustainable for them or not - the issue at hand for you is making sure that you're compensated for your flight delay.

Knock-on delays don't in themselves count as extraordinary circumstances, but if the underlying reason for a late inbound flight was outside the airline's control then they may be sometimes able to deny claims.  However, from a quick look at public domain information on the likes of Flightradar24, it would appear that the aircraft operating yesterday's MAN-BGI flight arrived early from Orlando overnight anyway, although it seems to have flown a MAN-MAN circular route after that too, potentially to test a technical fix, although that's just supposition....

If you've submitted your claim, see what they say and post back here if you need any suggestions!

jdybnsn

Thank you askbanker - I realise that I put yesterday's flight when I meant to say Wednesday's flight - 2nd November

I hope that didn't confuse things and could you confirm the information stated above still applies please ?

eskbanker

jdybnsn said:

Thank you askbanker - I realise that I put yesterday's flight when I meant to say Wednesday's flight - 2nd November

I hope that didn't confuse things and could you confirm the information stated above still applies please ?

Yes, I got it wrong too and was actually looking at the data for the 2nd, the flight doesn't operate on Thursdays!

daveyjp

Aircraft are complicated, they rely on even more complicated infrastructure to perform on time.  Lots of chance for a problem to occur and it ppears this aircraft had a technical issue on 2 November.

The aircraft did two test flights, one about 11.15am and one at 1pm.

JPears

daveyjp said:

Aircraft are complicated, they rely on even more complicated infrastructure to perform on time.  Lots of chance for a problem to occur and it ppears this aircraft had a technical issue on 2 November.

The aircraft did two test flights, one about 11.15am and one at 1pm.

All inherent in running an airline, so not ECs