Wizzair closing case and referring to EU website when I am in UK

jrcbutler

I had a horrendous Wizzair flight in the summer that was delayed then cancelled at 1am with a few txt messages telling me to get my own accommodation, book an alternative flight and get taxi to another airport. I did this and went through their claims process and all looked to be working well. They confirmed they would pay for these including two BA flights from Heathrow the following day. I was then told they would not pay me for the Taxi and Luton Hotel accommodation even though I received txt messages from them to tell me they would do this when the flight was cancelled. I was asked for proof of the BA flight and cost. I sent them two emails (saved as pdf's) but they said they couldn't accept them. I then asked BA to send me a pdf receipt separately and I sent these to Wizzair. They said they couldn't read these so I printed them, scanned them to pdf and sent these back to them. The did not look at these but told me there was nothing they could do and had closed the case and I had to take it up with an EU site. This site then tells me I have to be in a EU country to apply so I am at a loss for what to do next as they already sort of accepted my compensation claim but will not look at my BA receipt.

eskbanker

Once you get to their final response (perhaps that's where you already are) then you can escalate to Aviation ADR, or take them to small claims:

https://www.aviationadr.org.uk/how-to-complain-about-wizz-air-flight/

CKhalvashi

The starting point as far as Wizz are concerned will be who was the operator of your flight. They are an international company and won't be aware of your place of residence.

If the flight code was W6, this will be an EU airline operating the flight, if it was W9 then (90% of the time) it won't be. Luton/Liverpool-Tirana, selected flights to Chisinau (where the base has now temporarily closed again) and flights Luton-Skopje before the W22 season started is where it can become more complicated (they are W6-operated W9 flights), plus probably some others I can't think off the top of my head.

Wizz Air Hungary and Wizz Air UK are completely different airlines with different management teams, different crew SOPs and each has its own aircraft on the respective national register.

Eskbanker's link will be the one you need in any event.

eskbanker

When they said "there was nothing they could do and had closed the case and I had to take it up with an EU site. This site then tells me I have to be in a EU country to apply", exactly which EU site were they directing you to?

I could just about understand it if you were dealing with the UK arm and it was the other one that was operating the flight concerned, but if they were going to use that line of argument then the time to do so would have been right up front at the start of the claim, rather than well into the discussion of the detail.

If it's the EU arm of Wizz Air that you need to be dealing with then it's categorically false that you need to be in a EU country to apply - when operating flights out of the UK they must abide by the UK 261 regulations, which are agnostic about residency or location.  If the flight was from the UK to an EU destination then you'd have a choice about whether to claim under the UK or EU regulations but I don't think the latter actually require you to "be in a EU country to apply" as such either!

If not getting anywhere, it may help to contact the CAA, who are obviously getting cheesed off with Wizz Air's behaviour:

https://www.caa.co.uk/news/regulator-raises-concerns-with-wizz-air-following-complaints/