CAA not responding

the-siren

Last year I raised a complaint with my airline regarding a flight that landed more than 3 hours after it was supposed to. They refused to compensate me so I raised this with Resolver, and after supplying all relevant information they said they were escalating it to the CAA. The CAA contacted me in December 2022 to say they had received my complaint and would contact the airline directly and would aim to respond to me within 10 weeks. It has now been 8 months. I sent them an email in June but have received no reply. 

I'm just wondering if anyone else has experiences such a delay in hearing back from CAA, and if there is anything I can do to speed up a response from them? 

RogerPensionGuy

What's the actual reason why the flight arrived late?

the-siren

We were given conflicting stories: the flight was from Gatwick to Dublin and initially we were told by staff at the gate that due to "a passenger issue" at Dublin the plane arrived late to Gatwick. We were then told on the plane that there had been an issue with staff, and when I spoke to the airline at the time of making my original complaint they claimed air traffic control issues meant that no refund would be issued. It feels odd to have had 3 conflicting reasons for the delay and it would be nice to hear something back from CAA given that it's been 8 months with no update.

Westin

I think the problem is often a combination of reasons for a flight delay. One starts it and others follow because of it. This might be why you heard three different reasons.  From an airline point of view I suspect it is easier to simplify the delay reason rather than go into too much detail. 

In your case I guess completely plausible that a passenger issue was the first issue (late passenger to gate, having to overload and remove luggage etc), this might then mean the original air traffic slot was missed and a new slot obtained/even a flight plan refilled (next part of delay), this may or may not impact crew hours etc etc.     With air traffic restrictions and issues seemingly being a great cause of delays this year, the impact can be great if the flight misses the original slot time for any reason.

When your original claim directly made to the airline was denied, what reason were you given and why do you suspect this was wrong?

the-siren

Westin said:

I think the problem is often a combination of reasons for a flight delay. One starts it and others follow because of it. This might be why you heard three different reasons.  From an airline point of view I suspect it is easier to simplify the delay reason rather than go into too much detail. 

In your case I guess completely plausible that a passenger issue was the first issue (late passenger to gate, having to overload and remove luggage etc), this might then mean the original air traffic slot was missed and a new slot obtained/even a flight plan refilled (next part of delay), this may or may not impact crew hours etc etc.     With air traffic restrictions and issues seemingly being a great cause of delays this year, the impact can be great if the flight misses the original slot time for any reason.

When your original claim directly made to the airline was denied, what reason were you given and why do you suspect this was wrong?

Hi there, thanks for this: their email stated that the flight was disrupted due to "Air Traffic Control restrictions" and that they "deemed this to be an extraordinary circumstance" therefore were refusing compensation.