Ryanair flight diversion - costs help required

eskbanker

bagand96 said:

Diverted flight on 22nd October.  After a bit of back and forth the airline agree to pay the claim 6 days later on 28th October.

And this is considered "apalling" and "an absolute joke" ?!  Seems they've resolved very quickly, granted their automated process didn't work, but it seems they've responded to your queries in a fairly timely manner and you hopefully have a satisfactory resolution in under a week. Certainly more straight forward than it would be with many other airlines, including some major flag carriers.

To be fair, those quoted words came earlier, firstly in response to Ryanair issuing an evasive response that ignored the question, and then claiming something that was demonstrably false - OP will presumably be happier now that matters are heading towards an appropriate conclusion but it's not really surprising that Ryanair's customers find such experiences frustrating....

PaulFS

theredeye said:

Update 5. Success?

I responded to their email, the one where they stated that they provided onward transportation to Malaga, and provided a screenshot of the communication they sent asking customers to arrange their own travel which they could expense.
They have now agreed to pay the expense claim. I'll wait for the payment before I consider the matter closed!

Well done and congratulations!  I'm about to email them direct - knowing you (hopefully) have got the right result is a great help.  I appreciate the updates - cheers

bagand96

eskbanker said:

bagand96 said:

Diverted flight on 22nd October.  After a bit of back and forth the airline agree to pay the claim 6 days later on 28th October.

And this is considered "apalling" and "an absolute joke" ?!  Seems they've resolved very quickly, granted their automated process didn't work, but it seems they've responded to your queries in a fairly timely manner and you hopefully have a satisfactory resolution in under a week. Certainly more straight forward than it would be with many other airlines, including some major flag carriers.

To be fair, those quoted words came earlier, firstly in response to Ryanair issuing an evasive response that ignored the question, and then claiming something that was demonstrably false - OP will presumably be happier now that matters are heading towards an appropriate conclusion but it's not really surprising that Ryanair's customers find such experiences frustrating....

I agree, the comments were made before the resolution.  I sometimes think that people pre-judge outcomes based on a perception of the brand, particularly when the brand is Ryanair.  They largely automate most of their customer interface (like a lot of companies - perhaps more rigorously due to their business model) and the automated processes won't always work.  But even so for balance I thought it's worth pointing out that to get a number of responses from a human being and an agreement to settle within 6 days, is an excellent result for ANY airline, let alone this airline that everyone loves to hate!

theredeye

bagand96 said:

Diverted flight on 22nd October.  After a bit of back and forth the airline agree to pay the claim 6 days later on 28th October.

And this is considered "apalling" and "an absolute joke" ?!  Seems they've resolved very quickly, granted their automated process didn't work, but it seems they've responded to your queries in a fairly timely manner and you hopefully have a satisfactory resolution in under a week. Certainly more straight forward than it would be with many other airlines, including some major flag carriers.

I stand my my comments. Firstly based on the experience of customers at the time of the incident. Secondly, because of the process and effort I have had to go through - the factual errors from Ryanair, the by-default attempts to reject the claim and the fact that they know they have a process that is broken but still push customers down it. I have only had success because I have had to persevere against a tide of ineptitude, and spend significant time and effort doing so. Probably more time and effort than they spent trying to find transportation for the ~200 passengers. If you are comparing that to other airlines and saying this experience is better, then I'm afraid that's a very low bar to be setting, I would hope nobody would settle for that as acceptable. 

theredeye

bagand96 said:

eskbanker said:

bagand96 said:

Diverted flight on 22nd October.  After a bit of back and forth the airline agree to pay the claim 6 days later on 28th October.

And this is considered "apalling" and "an absolute joke" ?!  Seems they've resolved very quickly, granted their automated process didn't work, but it seems they've responded to your queries in a fairly timely manner and you hopefully have a satisfactory resolution in under a week. Certainly more straight forward than it would be with many other airlines, including some major flag carriers.

To be fair, those quoted words came earlier, firstly in response to Ryanair issuing an evasive response that ignored the question, and then claiming something that was demonstrably false - OP will presumably be happier now that matters are heading towards an appropriate conclusion but it's not really surprising that Ryanair's customers find such experiences frustrating....

I agree, the comments were made before the resolution.  I sometimes think that people pre-judge outcomes based on a perception of the brand, particularly when the brand is Ryanair.  They largely automate most of their customer interface (like a lot of companies - perhaps more rigorously due to their business model) and the automated processes won't always work.  But even so for balance I thought it's worth pointing out that to get a number of responses from a human being and an agreement to settle within 6 days, is an excellent result for ANY airline, let alone this airline that everyone loves to hate!

I was wondering whether to bother to respond to this or not - obviously I have chosen to.
I didn't pre-judge because of the reputation of the brand. I have had some excellent service from supposed 'budget' organisations, and awful service from 'premium'.

You are correct that my comments were made during a frustrating process rather than at the conclusion. However, in my job I drive business change and operational excellence including customer journey management. The choices concerning how to establish the complaint / reclaim handling process and the underpinning technology are choices made by the supplier - not the customer. A cynic would say that the 'faults' are by design not by error, in order to reduce successful re-claims. If I was responsible for implementing and then maintaining such a poor journey then I would have been sacked, except in an organisation aiming to that level or service. 

If a customer has had to crawl through mud to get to a nice cup of tea, they will rightly remember the mud not the tea. 

bagand96

theredeye said:

bagand96 said:

Diverted flight on 22nd October.  After a bit of back and forth the airline agree to pay the claim 6 days later on 28th October.

And this is considered "apalling" and "an absolute joke" ?!  Seems they've resolved very quickly, granted their automated process didn't work, but it seems they've responded to your queries in a fairly timely manner and you hopefully have a satisfactory resolution in under a week. Certainly more straight forward than it would be with many other airlines, including some major flag carriers.

I stand my my comments. Firstly based on the experience of customers at the time of the incident. Secondly, because of the process and effort I have had to go through - the factual errors from Ryanair, the by-default attempts to reject the claim and the fact that they know they have a process that is broken but still push customers down it. I have only had success because I have had to persevere against a tide of ineptitude, and spend significant time and effort doing so. Probably more time and effort than they spent trying to find transportation for the ~200 passengers. If you are comparing that to other airlines and saying this experience is better, then I'm afraid that's a very low bar to be setting, I would hope nobody would settle for that as acceptable. 

I'm not defending them per se, and perhaps it is a low bar to be setting. But it is, by any measure a very quick resolution to an EC261 claim. I'm very glad you got a resolution and even more so as quickly as you did, I just think that on balance against some of the nightmare stories you can read on this forum or elsewhere, this hasn't been a particularly bad performance by the airline concerned.

There was adverse weather at Malaga that evening, a couple of flights spent time holding, and at least one other diverted elsewhere in addition to your wifes.

rob_s23

Really appreciate the posts here I was on that Leeds Malaga ( diverted to Alicante ) flight with my wife on 22/10  and also attempted to use the online "compensation /expenses form"  as mentioned it does not cater for diversions seemingly. I am waiting for my response from Ryan Air having submitted receipts - I dont recall getting the electronic message on the night saying expenses would be paid ( assume it was on the app) my historic  flight details have now gone from that  .
The fact that one person appears to being refunded will hopefully pave the way for others though I can see it has been a painful process and should be simpler .  My costs for info were 80 euros for a hotel and approx £250 for two high spreed train tickets via Madrid so more than £300 in expenses.

best wishes rob 

Notarobot123

I also really appreciate this thread, thank you!

I was also on this diverted flight and Ryanair have finally come back to me saying they would only pay my hotel accommodation, as they had supplied transportation. (They hadn't.) But we have gone back to them asking why they would pay hotel expenses if they had put on transportation for us like they said - doesn't make sense. Apart from the fact they are doing everything they can to make claiming as difficult as possible!!

I have sent the screenshot as per previous thread says and I've spoken to Bott & Co. who say they will take my case. Hopefully they may budge over reimbursing me for the 650 euro taxi rude we had to take the next day (split between the 5 of us).

I look forward to hearing a success story or two (fingers crossed)

Imogen01

Hello everyone - I was also on the Ryanair flight diverted to Alicante with my husband and 2 children so adding my experience to this thread. 

As no alternative transport had been provided by Ryanair, we were stranded at Alicante airport and to make matters worse, the hire car we had booked for the week to be collected at Malaga Airport was cancelled (with no refund) as we did not turn up to collect it. We tried to call the car hire company in Malaga to explain but as it was 2200, there was no answer. Rather than stay in a hotel in Alicante and try to travel the following day, we booked a hire car for the 4 of us to replace the hire car that we had previously booked (and that we could no longer collect as we had been flown into a different airport). We used the car to travel through the night to our holiday accommodation and have submitted a receipt for the car hire to Ryanair. 

I am now on my third email to Ryanair who are currently asserting that we should have used public transport to travel to our destination. I have explained that the distance from Alicante to Malaga is nearly 400 km and there was no public transport available and we tried to mitigate our costs by not booking a hotel overnight for the 4 of us and travelling through the night. It helps that my husband is a solicitor so he has been drafting the emails to Ryanair.

It will be very useful to hear how others get on with this. Our hire car was 700 euros (partly as there is a substantial fee because we booked to return to Malaga Airport). The alternative (an overnight hotel, train fares/bus fares to Malaga and then an alternative hire car to our destination) would probably have been more expensive and taken another day of our holiday.

It is worth noting that I received an email from Ryanair on the 22nd October which states: 

"In the event your flight has diverted and will not continue to your scheduled destination, we will make every effort to secure alternative arrangements to get you to your destination. If we cannot organise alternative transport on the day, we will organize accommodation for any necessary overnight stay and applicable ground transportation to/from hotel and airport for you.

If transport cannot be arranged or you do not want to wait for our solution, we encourage you to make your own way to your destination and keep receipted expenses to submit for reimbursement. You can access our expenses form here"

I have shared this email with Ryanair as part of our claim. 

Any advice at this stage welcome. Thank you!

Imogen01

Imogen01

Hello everyone - I was also on the Ryanair flight diverted to Alicante with my husband and 2 children so adding my experience to this thread. 

As no alternative transport had been provided by Ryanair, we were stranded at Alicante airport and to make matters worse, the hire car we had booked for the week to be collected at Malaga Airport was cancelled (with no refund) as we did not turn up to collect it. We tried to call the car hire company in Malaga to explain but as it was 2200, there was no answer. Rather than stay in a hotel in Alicante and try to travel the following day, we booked a hire car for the 4 of us to replace the hire car that we had previously booked (and that we could no longer collect as we had been flown into a different airport). We used the car to travel through the night to our holiday accommodation and have submitted a receipt for the car hire to Ryanair. 

I am now on my third email to Ryanair who are currently asserting that we should have used public transport to travel to our destination. I have explained that the distance from Alicante to Malaga is nearly 400 km and there was no public transport available and we tried to mitigate our costs by not booking a hotel overnight for the 4 of us and travelling through the night. It helps that my husband is a solicitor so he has been drafting the emails to Ryanair.

It will be very useful to hear how others get on with this. Our hire car was 700 euros (partly as there is a substantial fee because we booked to return to Malaga Airport). The alternative (an overnight hotel, train fares/bus fares to Malaga and then an alternative hire car to our destination) would probably have been more expensive and taken another day of our holiday.

It is worth noting that I received an email from Ryanair on the 22nd October which states: 

"In the event your flight has diverted and will not continue to your scheduled destination, we will make every effort to secure alternative arrangements to get you to your destination. If we cannot organise alternative transport on the day, we will organize accommodation for any necessary overnight stay and applicable ground transportation to/from hotel and airport for you.

If transport cannot be arranged or you do not want to wait for our solution, we encourage you to make your own way to your destination and keep receipted expenses to submit for reimbursement. You can access our expenses form here"

I have shared this email with Ryanair as part of our claim. 

Any advice at this stage welcome. Thank you!