Ryanair denied boarding

ripofflondon

saajan_12 said:

We'll of course only have your side here, and its possible the staff genuinely saw it as more confrontational than the picture you paint. 

Also there were a few inaccuracies in what constitutes a compensible delay - its 3hrs not 2hrs, and based on arrival time not take off time (as many will make up time on the way), so even an hour later, filming before boarding would have been pointless. This might have made them disbelieve your 'honest mistake' claim. 

I only saw these further posts by chance.  Wow - over a week later! 

Well - it WAS an honest mistake by me re the 2 hours vs 3, and I also had no idea about it being based on arrival time not take off time, nor about the 'making up time on the way' issue. 

I have been extremely interested to read all the further comment / clarifications about door opening time, how to look this up online etc etc.  

Re the 'aggressiveness' issue:  I am awaiting a response from Ryanair customer services following my escalated complaint in which I make the following points: 

- definitely there were no swear words / insults / threatening gestures from me.  Presumably there is CCTV footage of the whole incident and this will show that to be the case. 

- There were police in the terminal building.  If I had indeed been aggressive, surely the staff would have called them - but they didn't (about 30 mins earlier the Policia Nacional had been interrogating an Arab guy sat next to me, demanding to see his passport etc and I joked with him afterwards: 'what did they think they would find in your passport that the immigration people hadn't?!'  Him: 'I'm always getting this from the Spanish Police'). 

- They thought I had filmed them, but I hadn't - I had only photographed the TV screen with the departure time, and told them this (the video clip bears this out).  And surely photographing the staff would have been further grounds for them to call the police on me in any case. 

- I was mistaken about the length of delay to qualify for compensation, so I wouldn't have taken any photos of anything if I had known it was 3 hrs not 2 - and told them this. 

- I offered to delete the video, but it was made clear that this wouldn't have helped me. 

- If I had been 'aggressive', surely I wouldn't have been allowed to buy another ticket from Ryanair for a flight leaving a matter of hours later - nor board the flight.  

It was a week ago today that I sent the above email.  They said on the day they would look into it with the airport staff and come back to me.  

ripofflondon

Hi again

The ticket for the flight I was denied boarding of was bought online in the UK a couple of weeks before.  However, when I bought the ticket for the replacement flight the next morning, I was in Barcelona airport.  I bought it online and paid in Euros from my UK credit card account, using my UK resident sign-in information on Ryanair's website ie UK address, phone no etc.  

Was the contract made in the UK or in Spain?  If, hypothetically, I wanted to take this matter further, would I have to sue Ryanair for the cost of the replacement flight in a Spanish court?  Or does the fact that the ticket for the flight I was denied boarding of was bought online in the UK mean I could do it through a UK court?  

Anyone have any thoughts, pls put them up here!  

Cheers

eskbanker

ripofflondon said:

Hi again

The ticket for the flight I was denied boarding of was bought online in the UK a couple of weeks before.  However, when I bought the ticket for the replacement flight the next morning, I was in Barcelona airport.  I bought it online and paid in Euros from my UK credit card account, using my UK resident sign-in information on Ryanair's website ie UK address, phone no etc.  

Was the contract made in the UK or in Spain?  If, hypothetically, I wanted to take this matter further, would I have to sue Ryanair for the cost of the replacement flight in a Spanish court?  Or does the fact that the ticket for the flight I was denied boarding of was bought online in the UK mean I could do it through a UK court?  

Anyone have any thoughts, pls put them up here!  

Cheers

If you were trying to claim that Ryanair had breached a contract, then it would have been the one for the original flight, although the fact that you were in the UK at the time doesn't override the fact that Ryanair's conditions of carriage specify that it's Irish law that applies.  They do also envisage that actions can be brought in other jurisdictions, but as I think you accept in your heart of hearts, you really have no prospect of success, so throwing away a £35 court fee in a futile attempt to recover £65 seems a complete waste of everyone's time and money....

ripofflondon

eskbanker said:

 I think you accept in your heart of hearts, you really have no prospect of success, so throwing away a £35 court fee in a futile attempt to recover £65 seems a complete waste of everyone's time and money....

Noted.  Do you still maintain that 'no prospect of success' statement bearing in mind that the video I took does NOT show the faces of the staff (although it has their voices) and only shows the TV screen with the flight no and departure time?  Also they have backed away from their assertion that I was 'aggressive' and now say that I was denied boarding purely because of my 'recording their personnel'.

In other words, does capturing voices and showing feet, without identifying who the voices and feet belong to, constitute 'recording their personnel'? 

eskbanker

ripofflondon said:

eskbanker said:

 I think you accept in your heart of hearts, you really have no prospect of success, so throwing away a £35 court fee in a futile attempt to recover £65 seems a complete waste of everyone's time and money....

Noted.  Do you still maintain that 'no prospect of success' statement bearing in mind that the video I took does NOT show the faces of the staff (although it has their voices) and only shows the TV screen with the flight no and departure time?  Also they have backed away from their assertion that I was 'aggressive' and now say that I was denied boarding purely because of my 'recording their personnel'.

In other words, does capturing voices and showing feet, without identifying who the voices and feet belong to, constitute 'recording their personnel'? 

You previously admitted that your recording included a head shot?

ripofflondon said:

I did a video with my mobile of the customer service agent's computer terminal showing the time and then turned around and pointed the phone upwards to include the big public-facing screen showing the scheduled departure time.  In the process of doing this, I momentarily caught a fleeting and blurred side view of the head of the Ryanair flight dispatcher who was standing there.

and in response I linked to the part of their conditions of carriage where they confirm that "Recording or photographing our personnel, whether at the airport or onboard the plane, without their consent is strictly prohibited", so I really don't think it's going to be challenging for them to defend their actions in court as being reasonable in the circumstances.

ripofflondon

You previously admitted that your recording included a head shot?

I edited this out and Ryanair never saw it in the video clip I sent them.  

eskbanker

ripofflondon said:

You previously admitted that your recording included a head shot?

I edited this out and Ryanair never saw it in the video clip I sent them.  

But you presumably wouldn't perjure yourself in court by pretending that you hadn't captured it in the first place, i.e. at the time when the decision was taken to refuse you boarding?

ripofflondon

eskbanker said:

But you presumably wouldn't perjure yourself in court by pretending that you hadn't captured it in the first place, i.e. at the time when the decision was taken to refuse you boarding?

Ouch.  Not what I wanted to hear, but if I wanted to be like Vladimir Putin ie surrounded by people who agree with everything I say and don't tell me anything I don't want to hear then I wouldn't post on this forum in the 1st place.  

Last question - do you reckon they WOULD bother to defend a claim as small as this one? 

eskbanker

ripofflondon said:

eskbanker said:

But you presumably wouldn't perjure yourself in court by pretending that you hadn't captured it in the first place, i.e. at the time when the decision was taken to refuse you boarding?

Ouch.  Not what I wanted to hear, but if I wanted to be like Vladimir Putin ie surrounded by people who agree with everything I say and don't tell me anything I don't want to hear then I wouldn't post on this forum in the 1st place.  

Last question - do you reckon they WOULD bother to defend a claim as small as this one? 

I don't know if they'd defend a claim but suspect they would, i.e. it would be rash to take the view that it's too small for them to bother with, especially if it's ultimately a matter of the company defending the conduct of its staff, and where they'll presumably be confident that they were in the right and acted reasonably in the circumstances.

ripofflondon

I eskbanker said:

I don't know if they'd defend a claim but suspect they would, i.e. it would be rash to take the view that it's too small for them to bother with, especially if it's ultimately a matter of the company defending the conduct of its staff, and where they'll presumably be confident that they were in the right and acted reasonably in the circumstances.

Thanks. 

The 'head shot' referred to above had very much been in passing and from the side as I was panning, and it would have been obvious to anyone viewing it that that hadn't been the primary focus of the video.  

It just annoyed me the way they'd said it was because I was 'aggressive' and 'unruly' when I know how I was - I wasn't drunk or anything and they could have called the police on me but didn't. 
They dropped that assertion in the end and I said to them after that 'just give the cost of my replacement ticket to charity' but even then they said no.