Ryanair not honest about delay reasons

xfurrier

My daughter and myself were coming back from our summer holidays (Zadar, Croatia) back to London in early September. The flight was 4h48m late in arrival.

Completed the claim form and after a long-ish wait got a response from Ryanair that: "your fight was delayed due to a bird strike suffered by the operating aircraft, outside of the control of Ryanair" they have no liability.

However, I've managed to check the flight routes of the aircraft. After STN - ZAD trip, rather than flying back to STN, the aircraft made a return trip to Frankfurt (ZAD - HHN, HHN - ZAD) and only they made a trip to STN.

Any suggestions for the next step?

eskbanker

The fact that the aircraft flew to Frankfurt and back doesn't seem to contradict what you've included of their account - did they say specifically when/where the bird strike occurred?  Which of those sectors were delayed?

la531983

Might be nothing unusual about that routing tbh. 

xfurrier

@eskbanker - they were not specific. I asked for more details, but to no avail, so still don't know when and where "the operating aircraft" suffered the bird strike.

Yes, you're right @la531983, might be nothing unusual, but it feels like the round trip to HHN was pushed in and, as a consequence, we experienced a long delay.

Thanks.

Hoenir

xfurrier said:

However, I've managed to check the flight routes of the aircraft. After STN - ZAD trip, rather than flying back to STN, the aircraft made a return trip to Frankfurt (ZAD - HHN, HHN - ZAD) and only they made a trip to STN.

Most likely this was the aircraft's scheduled flight plan for the day. Low cost carriers operate their aircraft to achieve maximum revenue. 

DigSunPap

Are you not liable for compensation then if it is a delay caused by a bird?

eskbanker

xfurrier said:

@eskbanker - they were not specific. I asked for more details, but to no avail, so still don't know when and where "the operating aircraft" suffered the bird strike.

Yes, you're right @la531983, might be nothing unusual, but it feels like the round trip to HHN was pushed in and, as a consequence, we experienced a long delay.

But what leads you to believe that Ryanair are being dishonest (as opposed to just vague)?

DigSunPap said:

Are you not liable for compensation then if it is a delay caused by a bird?

No: https://curia.europa.eu/jcms/upload/docs/application/pdf/2017-05/cp170044en.pdf

xfurrier

@Hoenir - I'm aware they are extracting the most from their aircraft/crew, which is fine. One of the ways to do that is to use the same aircraft soon after the first leg, for a return trip. In this particular case - landing in ZAD, a short stop of 40-ish mins and return leg to STN. So, there is no way that our aircraft was supposed to be scheduled for a return trip (2 x 1h15mins) to HHN between the STN-ZAD-STN legs.

In addition - my daughter just reminded me - the pilot apologised for delay and said that there were instructed to pick up another flight.

xfurrier

Maybe another aircraft - one supposed to take the return trip to HHN - suffered a bird strike.

BTW, what kind of delay (mins, hours, days, ...) would a bird strike cause?

eskbanker

xfurrier said:

I'm aware they are extracting the most from their aircraft/crew, which is fine. One of the ways to do that is to use the same aircraft soon after the first leg, for a return trip. In this particular case - landing in ZAD, a short stop of 40-ish mins and return leg to STN. So, there is no way that our aircraft was supposed to be scheduled for a return trip (2 x 1h15mins) to HHN between the STN-ZAD-STN legs.

If you're saying that a ZAD-STN flight is scheduled to depart 40 minutes after a STN-ZAD one is due to arrive, then that doesn't necessarily indicate that they're intended to be operated by the same aircraft, although that'll often be the case.  I don't know the scale of Ryanair's operations at ZAD, in terms of what other flights they'd have had around that time?

xfurrier said:

In addition - my daughter just reminded me - the pilot apologised for delay and said that there were instructed to pick up another flight.

xfurrier said:

Maybe another aircraft - one supposed to take the return trip to HHN - suffered a bird strike.

If the aircraft arriving from STN had been intended to return there immediately afterwards but was redeployed onto a HHN routing first then yes, that would suggest that another aircraft suffered a bird strike, rather than yours, which would indeed open up a discussion about whether your flight genuinely was delayed by qualifying extraordinary circumstances.

xfurrier said:

BTW, what kind of delay (mins, hours, days, ...) would a bird strike cause?

I imagine that it would depend on severity - there must be an inspection process first, but presumably there will sometimes be minimal damage, allowing further flights, and sometimes the aircraft would need to be grounded for repairs.

xfurrier

eskbanker said:
If you're saying that a ZAD-STN flight is scheduled to depart 40 minutes after a STN-ZAD one is due to arrive, then that doesn't necessarily indicate that they're intended to be operated by the same aircraft, although that'll often be the case.  I don't know the scale of Ryanair's operations at ZAD, in terms of what other flights they'd have had around that time?

Normally, there is a single flight during summer-ish months and the same aircraft is used for the return trip soon after landing in ZAD.

eskbanker said:

If the aircraft arriving from STN had been intended to return there immediately afterwards but was redeployed onto a HHN routing first then yes, that would suggest that another aircraft suffered a bird strike, rather than yours, which would indeed open up a discussion about whether your flight genuinely was delayed by qualifying extraordinary circumstances.

What can I do to find out more? I did respond to their rejection letter asking for more info, but it's been more than 2 months without a reply. How to follow up on it?