Flight delay compensation rejected

rhf74

Hi wonder if anyone can help. 

We recently had a flight delay coming back from Majorca and TUI have confirmed delay was  4 hours 58 min. They stated the delay was due to medical emergency which occurred on a previous rotation and rejected our claim under extraordinary circumstances. We know the flight delay was a 6am in the morning, (husband uses flight tracker a lot) they had over 12 hours to sort something. My question is can they use the knock on effect to reject our claim? 

We also didn’t get offered any food or drink and it was not mentioned to us. 

Thank you 

Westin

I do hope that the person that suffered the medical emergency is okay. Also glad that TUI prioritised his/her welfare over a relatively small delay to others.

Voyager2002

rhf74 said:

Hi wonder if anyone can help. 

We recently had a flight delay coming back from Majorca and TUI have confirmed delay was  4 hours 58 min. They stated the delay was due to medical emergency which occurred on a previous rotation and rejected our claim under extraordinary circumstances. We know the flight delay was a 6am in the morning, (husband uses flight tracker a lot) they had over 12 hours to sort something. My question is can they use the knock on effect to reject our claim? 

We also didn’t get offered any food or drink and it was not mentioned to us. 

Thank you 

There was a recent discussion about a flight delay following the discovery of the pilot's dead body in his hotel room. You might find that discussion relevant to your case: obviously a sudden death or medical emergency is an "exceptional circumstance" but if it happened twelve hours before your departure time you might expect the airline to put in place some contingency measure. Ultimately the courts have to decide.

If you bought any food/drink or communications while waiting, send the bill to the airline.

rhf74

I totally agreeing I do hope they are okay and if I had have been on that flight I wouldn’t have an issue as these things happen. But we were the last flight of the day and Tui had over 12 hours to sort something out plus inform us of what was going on but no-one knew anything not even the Tui desk in the airport which I would have expected given the time delay. 

eskbanker

What does the flight tracking show for that aircraft's movements that day?  In particular, how long was it between the medical emergency occurring and the time at which they'd have needed to despatch a replacement aircraft from one of their main bases to operate the outbound UK to Palma leg closer to the schedule than they managed?

rhf74

eskbanker said:

What does the flight tracking show for that aircraft's movements that day?  In particular, how long was it between the medical emergency occurring and the time at which they'd have needed to despatch a replacement aircraft from one of their main bases to operate the outbound UK to Palma leg closer to the schedule than they managed?

The medical emergency was the 6.10am from Manchester to palma,  the plane landed late in Palma  then it flew back to Leeds Bradford (they changed pilot at Leeds)  then the same plane flew from Leeds to Palma and then our flight back to Manchester. Our flight back was meant to be 7pm we didn’t get off till 11.45.  The pilot told us where the plane had been and the info re  change over of pilot. 

eskbanker

rhf74 said:

eskbanker said:

What does the flight tracking show for that aircraft's movements that day?  In particular, how long was it between the medical emergency occurring and the time at which they'd have needed to despatch a replacement aircraft from one of their main bases to operate the outbound UK to Palma leg closer to the schedule than they managed?

The medical emergency was the 6.10am from Manchester to palma,  the plane landed late in Palma  then it flew back to Leeds Bradford (they changed pilot at Leeds)  then the same plane flew from Leeds to Palma and then our flight back to Manchester. Our flight back was meant to be 7pm we didn’t get off till 11.45.  The pilot told us where the plane had been and the info re  change over of pilot. 

But the medical emergency presumably didn't actually happen (or at least finish) at 6.10am and to get a plane to Palma for a 7pm departure would mean leaving the UK by 3pm, and to actually arrange a replacement plane (and probably some crew) obviously needs time before that, as does getting both to Leeds, so what I was getting at was that it wouldn't have been anything like 12 hours between understanding the likely delay from the medical emergency and getting an alternative plane and crew lined up. 

You could still challenge them though, as the exemption from compensation liability is if "caused by extraordinary circumstances which could not have been avoided even if all reasonable measures had been taken", so there is still an argument that it would have been a reasonable measure to arrange a replacement aircraft and crew in time to operate your flight, but I'm just cautioning that it's unlikely to be realistic to assert that "Tui had over 12 hours to sort something out", in terms of the actual window within which they'd need to make a decision, even if that's the overall time between two scheduled departures....

NoodleDoodleMan

I was wondering about this situation along the same lines.

Tasking a plane with crew from outwith the airlines scheduled timetables and aircraft home base locations is presumably a significant logistical exercise ?

Was the pilot changeover enforced by the regulations about their maximum flying hours - that  might fit the scenario ?

The same would apply to the co-pilot.

eskbanker

Flight crew going out of hours is often mentioned by airlines as a reason for delays, but to me it misses the point - it's an effect rather than a cause, i.e. it's the consequential impact of other delays.

Also, in this case, it would surprise me if the same flight crew was rostered to be on duty ahead of a 6am departure and still be on shift at the end of a flight scheduled to leave Palma at 7pm, as this would be at least 15 hours even without any contingency for delays....

Westin

I don't think LBA is a crew base for TOM and suspect crew would have to be send by taxi to/from LBA from either MAN or NCL. The logistics are not straight forward. A planned flight deck or full crew change would be possible if planned well in advance but would present problems for a short notice full aircraft crew change if having to call them out and move them to another airport.

eskbanker

Westin said:

I don't think LBA is a crew base for TOM and suspect crew would have to be send by taxi to/from LBA from either MAN or NCL. The logistics are not straight forward. A planned flight deck or full crew change would be possible if planned well in advance but would present problems for a short notice full aircraft crew change if having to call them out and move them to another airport.

Do you know where they'd have spare aircraft, i.e. if they needed both plane and crew then they could position together?

In this case, if there's a substantial five hour delay evident early in the day, it doesn't seem an unreasonable expectation (from a passenger's perspective) that the airline ought to have sufficient contingency in their resourcing (both aircraft and crew) to be able to arrange substitutes in such circumstances for later rotations, so if the airline considered that unworkable then I'd question whether they have enough capacity, as it surely can't be planned on a best case basis.

However, I'm conscious that I have no insight into airline logistics (and am sure that this is very complex) so am purely speculating about how it might be perceived by courts, etc, in the context of compensation claims!