EU261 - Did not fly

JASwillow

I am a newbie to this forum. My question is Ryanair refusing me compensation. Their rationale is I did not fly or had no intention to fly. In short, 5hr delay meant I missed my son making his international football debut. I had missed the match due to delay so at last minute informed aircrew who
withdrew me from flight manifest. From reading regulations ( I am no lawyer), I only needed to check in 45mins before.
Any help or guidance would be greatly appreciated. Ryanair stance appears to be for me to write to third party to appeal their decision but I would rather fight my case directly with Ryanair. Thoughts?

Westin

Much depends on the reason for the delay.

You should be able to claim for a refund if your flight experienced a 5 hour delay and you off-loaded.

If the delay was down to extraordinary circumstances, something outside of Ryanair’s control like the recent French ATC dispute, then no extra compensation due.

eskbanker

Was the delay to the departure definitely at least 5 hours?  If it was 4 hours and 59 minutes then that would negate a claim, but once it's at least five hours then 6.1(c)(iii) clearly grants refund rights for flights not taken.

Edit: apologies, that's actually answering a different question, about refund rights, rather than compensation!  I'm not sure about the compensation situation - I know that a delay of at least three hours has been held by EU courts to equate to cancellation for the purposes of EC 261/2004, but am unsure if that applies when not taking the delayed flight....

JASwillow

Thanks for both your comments. Reason for delay was all down to Ryanair. Their only dispute with me was that I did not travel, or did not have the intention to travel. Like I said, I missed my son’s international debut so how they can claim that defies logic.

would the advice be to keep communicating with Ryanair or complain to third party/ombudsman?

Does a good template exist for this type of complaint?

eskbanker

Stating that you didn't travel seems indisputable fact, but assessing intention to travel is an entirely different matter, and one where the fact that you notified aircrew rather than ground staff presumably implies that you boarded the aircraft, which I'd have thought is a pretty clear signal of intention to travel!

Notwithstanding their questionable rationale for rejecting it, it's still unclear to me whether your claim has merit but if you're unhappy with the response you've received you should pursue them until they issue a final response, after which you can escalate to Aviation ADR, info about this will be shown in their Ts & Cs....

TELLIT01

I don't know if the fact that the OP seems to have told the check in staff that they no longer wished to travel would affect any entitlement to compensation.

Westin

JASwillow said:

Thanks for both your comments. Reason for delay was all down to Ryanair. Their only dispute with me was that I did not travel, or did not have the intention to travel. Like I said, I missed my son’s international debut so how they can claim that defies logic.

would the advice be to keep communicating with Ryanair or complain to third party/ombudsman?

Does a good template exist for this type of complaint?

Confused as to why they would say this. Had you checked in?

JASwillow

I am still confused with my options. I will continue to contact Ryanair, wasn’t sure there was a best way to do
this.