Flight delay due to road closure

larryharvey

And I mean, seriously, you have one road going to the airport and you don't have a back-up plan? 

eskbanker

larryharvey said:

I have just read elsewhere that road accidents are not considered EC by the Civil Aviation Authority, and there can be no exceptions? Airports are expected to be robust enough to handle things like this that are forseeable. 

Where have you read that and how reliable is it?  There's a lot of nonsense spouted on many sites, ambulance-chasers in particular, but generally it's meaningful case law that dictates how the regulations are to be interpreted - the CAA themselves are ambivalent about specifics:

https://www.caa.co.uk/passengers/resolving-travel-problems/delays-and-cancellations/making-a-claim/am-i-entitled-to-compensation/

bagand96

larryharvey said:

I have just read elsewhere that road accidents are not considered EC by the Civil Aviation Authority, and there can be no exceptions? Airports are expected to be robust enough to handle things like this that are forseeable. 

larryharvey said:

And I mean, seriously, you have one road going to the airport and you don't have a back-up plan? 

The criticisms here though are directed at the airport and in terms of delay compensation it is the airline that are liable in law.  I'm not sure what the airline could reasonably be expected to do if the major route to and from the airport was closed due to an RTC.

At the end of the day I'm just a random on the internet and my opinion is worth no more than anyone elses, however I still think the airline may well be able to mount a successful extraordinary circumstances defense in this case.

Assuming it was the Jet2 flight, it landed 2hrs 52 minutes late.  For delay compensation purposes it's when the doors were opened that counts.  Various websites list 2hrs 59mins or 3hrs 1min late as arrival time (unsure how they measure that)  Looks to be right on the cusp.

larryharvey

I have a text message sent at 21:24 to my partner back home, it reads "just waiting now to get off the plane". Doors did not open until at least 21:25. So 3 hour 5 minute delay.

I think the argument is that we left at 9am from Wales and there was no traffic all the way to the airport. Got there at 10:45am. So we were not delayed getting there. And so airline should have been robust enough to prevent all this impacting/having a knock-of effect to later flights. Also, some airlines and flights did leave on time.

The 3 hours compensation buffer is there precisely to allow airlines to factor in things like this. And Bristol is not a massive airport. They have, I think, 90 flights out per day? Staff and passengers experienced approx. a two hour delay in the morning. A robust operation with appropriate back-up plans should have seen that two hour delay reduced, not increased. Especially as our flight was not until the afternoon portion of departures.

Feels like they cut back on staff and contingencies and other costs just a little but too much and the result was a bunch of people including ourselves being just pinched out of their 3 hour protection buffer. That's on them.

larryharvey

Oh and traffic was moving again albeit slowly by like 5am, according to news stories/Twitter. Flights experienced a two hour delay i.e. earliest left two hours later than scheduled.

turnitround

Sorry but I find it strange that all this is about arriving 3 hours late on a holiday when there may have been someone in one of the cars who will never get to go on holiday again.  

eskbanker

larryharvey said:

Only happened a few days ago so not yet tried to claim.

There's clearly room for debate, but it seems to me that the obvious initial course of action is to submit a claim - if they reject it, as they probably will, then you can consider whether any of the above arguments are strong enough to cite, but there doesn't seem to be any value in doing so prior to completing a standard online claim form.

bagand96

larryharvey said:

I have a text message sent at 21:24 to my partner back home, it reads "just waiting now to get off the plane". Doors did not open until at least 21:25. So 3 hour 5 minute delay.

I think the argument is that we left at 9am from Wales and there was no traffic all the way to the airport. Got there at 10:45am. So we were not delayed getting there. And so airline should have been robust enough to prevent all this impacting/having a knock-of effect to later flights. Also, some airlines and flights did leave on time.

The 3 hours compensation buffer is there precisely to allow airlines to factor in things like this. And Bristol is not a massive airport. They have, I think, 90 flights out per day? Staff and passengers experienced approx. a two hour delay in the morning. A robust operation with appropriate back-up plans should have seen that two hour delay reduced, not increased. Especially as our flight was not until the afternoon portion of departures.

Feels like they cut back on staff and contingencies and other costs just a little but too much and the result was a bunch of people including ourselves being just pinched out of their 3 hour protection buffer. That's on them.

Where you left and travelled from isn't really relevant nor what time you departed or the road conditions at the time you travelled. 

The facts of the matter are that there was severe disruption that morning (due to circumstances beyond Jet2 and the airport's control). This affected afternoon flights due to the knock on affect from the morning delays. 

Your contention is that Jet2 should have somehow caught up the morning delays. As an airline with a Bristol base with all of their flights delayed in the morning I'm not sure what they could realistically have done (can't magic aircraft and crews from nowhere, especially on a busy school holiday weekend).  Other airlines on time were more than likely away based aircraft. 

It's academic though as @eskbanker says all you can do is claim and see what they say and go from there.

You're already certain Jet2 are entirely at fault and owe you compo, and have found evidence to back that up. 

larryharvey

There's plenty of case law that states a knock-of effect for other flights is not a permissible reason to cite extraordinary circumstances. 

https://paliparan.com/2021/02/18/guide-eu-rights-and-compensation-when-your-flight-is-cancelled/

"Knock-on effects

Airlines use complicated schedules to operate their flights. A plane and flight crew might for example be scheduled to first operate an Athens – Frankfurt – Athens flight in the morning, followed by Athens – Rome – Athens in the afternoon.

Let’s say for example that due to heavy fog in the early morning, the Athens to Frankfurt flight is significantly delayed by a couple of hours and can only operate in the afternoon when the weather conditions have finally improved.

That however means that the same plane and crew cannot be scheduled to operate the Athens to Rome flight which is set to depart around the same time.

If the airline now has to cancel the Athens to Rome flight as no other plane is available, this is called a “knock-on effect”, a secondary, indirect, or cumulative effect which is not directly related to the original problem.

In this case, passengers on the Athens to Frankfurt flight can forget about EC/261 delay compensation because adverse weather certainly is considered to be extraordinary circumstances.

However, passengers on the cancelled Athens to Rome flight would be fully entitled to EC/261 compensation for their cancelled flight. The adverse weather conditions did only apply to the first Athens to Frankfurt flight – and not to whatever followed later in the day.

What we have here is again a classic example of operational problems. The airline could for example have used another plane and crew to operate the Athens to Rome flight. According to recent European court decisions, such knock-on effects therefore do not constitute extraordinary circumstances."


imo, what you've got here is a case of airlines 'factoring in' an hour delay in order to cut corners and cut costs, and, unfortunately for them, effectively cutting their three hours down to two hours in this way means they made themselves liable under UK261.

eskbanker

larryharvey said:

There's plenty of case law that states a knock-of effect for other flights is not a permissible reason to cite extraordinary circumstances.

Have you actually found any yet, that are more useful and citable than that freelance blogger referring to unspecified "recent European court decisions"?