Plane diverted, resulting in missed connection

2blackkittens

- Our family (2 adults, 12 year old and 8 year old) flew Ethiopian Airways from Addis to Milan.  Our flight was diverted to Jeddah, meaning that we got into Milan about 4 hours late.

- we therefore missed our connecting flight to London Gatwick with EasyJet.

 - we spent at least 6 hours in Milan Airport sorting out alternative flights to London.  Only one plane that day/night had any availability to take us to London, and that was BA - it would have cost us £900 per person, which was way beyond our financial means, so obviously we did not take that option!  

- therefore, we had to find somewhere affordable we could stay for the night. We should have bought lunch, dinner, breakfast, lunch and dinner (although we didn't due to money constraints, and the fact that my partner became very unwell).  The whole experience set us back about £ 1400.

 

- eventually, we bought the cheapest flights we could find, which was EasyJet the following day (14/04) at 22:15.  This meant that we spent an unplanned 36–40 hours extra in Milan. 

 

- does anyone have advice on how to claim compensation for the financial consequences?  Our travel insurance decline responsibility, as do Ethiopian Airways and Kiwi.com (who were the site we were directed to from Skyscanner).

 

Voyager2002

I take it that you booked with Kiwi. In which case, did you choose their guarantee for connections?

Ethiopian airlines are likely to give you an apology and perhaps some loyalty points for the late arrival. 

Don't Ethiopian fly to London any more?

bagand96

Unfortunately you didn't have connecting flights where everything is booked under one reservation and ticket. Therefore Ethiopian Airlines have no responsibility to you in regards your easyJet onwards flight, as their ticket was a flight to Milan. 

Kiwi sell the "self connection" fares, and sometimes have a "guarantee" option as already mentioned. Did you have this on your booking? Did you contact Kiwi whilst in Milan?

mdann52

And just to add here - Ethiopian Airways are a non-EU airline, and flights into the EU do not fall under the EU261 provisions, so you are reliant on whatever measures for flight delays that are in Ethiopian law, so you are unlikely to have a legal right for any compensation. One for the travel insurance here I suspect.

2blackkittens

Voyager2002 said:

I take it that you booked with Kiwi. In which case, did you choose their guarantee for connections?

Ethiopian airlines are likely to give you an apology and perhaps some loyalty points for the late arrival. 

Don't Ethiopian fly to London any more?

Well, the connections guarantee is stated on our reservation.  They didn't highlight it separately or ask us to pay extra for this when we bought the tickets, but it is documented there as 'Kiwi.com guarantee'.  However, when I questioned this when applying for money back, they said it had to be a different 'Kiwi.com guarantee' that we should have paid extra for!  This makes no sense to me.

Yes, Ethiopian do fly to London, but this journey was cheaper. 

2blackkittens

bagand96 said:

Unfortunately you didn't have connecting flights where everything is booked under one reservation and ticket. Therefore Ethiopian Airlines have no responsibility to you in regards your easyJet onwards flight, as their ticket was a flight to Milan. 

Kiwi sell the "self connection" fares, and sometimes have a "guarantee" option as already mentioned. Did you have this on your booking? Did you contact Kiwi whilst in Milan?

I phoned Kiwi whilst in Milan, and they were extremely unhelpful.  They directed me to a website that crashed frequently.  It then asked us if we wanted to change all of our flights (which had started in Cape Town originally), and there was no option just to rebook the Milan-Gatwick section.

2blackkittens

mdann52 said:

And just to add here - Ethiopian Airways are a non-EU airline, and flights into the EU do not fall under the EU261 provisions, so you are reliant on whatever measures for flight delays that are in Ethiopian law, so you are unlikely to have a legal right for any compensation. One for the travel insurance here I suspect.

Yes, I looked up the EU info, and thought this was likely to be an issue!  We have applied to our insurance, who are also not interested.  Thank you to all of you for your comments and advice. 

Hoenir

2blackkittens said:

  Our flight was diverted to Jeddah, meaning that we got into Milan about 4 hours late.

That's always the risk when flying internationally.  Much in the same way when there's an accident ahead of you on the motorway.  Leaving plenty of time between connections is essential. When opting for the cheapest route options.