TUI "Crowdstrike" Delay - stuck in Turkey for 5 days!!!

J2msy01

Afternoon all.  Looking for some advice.
Our flight was cancelled out of Antalya on Saturday 20th July because of Crowdstrike, but it took Tui 5 DAYS to get us home.  Finally got home on Thursday 25th July.

They are stating they don't need to pay compensation, which I would be ok with if they had got us home the next day or the day after, but they took 5 days to sort something out. The communication was non-existent and they bussed us around Turkey to a further 2 hotels.  Not good with 2 young kids.

This cost myself and my wife 3 extra days annual leave each, and they're trying to fob everyone off with a £600 voucher off your next Tui holiday.  I'm not sure I will be booking with them again!  

Any advice on where to go with this now?  My travel insurance didn't cover delayed flights.

eskbanker

They're correct that compensation isn't due under the flight delay/cancellation regulations when the root cause was extraordinary circumstances beyond their control - it sounds like they didn't handle the situation particularly well but that doesn't in itself make them legally or contractually liable for anything else, if they provided accommodation, as they're obliged to do.  Nothing stopping you from complaining and negotiating, but on the face of it, there wouldn't be any prospect of recovering anything from them via court action, for example.

Mark_d

They got you home and provided you with food and accommodation?  Maybe they could have handled it better but things rarely go smoothly...even it's it's just one flight cancelled.

Your "loss" was a consequential loss of three days annual leave.  From my experience I don't think you could get anything to compensate.

It's far from ideal what happened but I'd be happy with £600 off a TUI holiday.

Hoenir

A £600 goodwill voucher seems fair recompense over something for which they had no direct control. 

MeteredOut

Is the voucher transferrable? If so, and you never want to fly Tui again, take it and sell it for £550.

J2msy01

Hoenir said:

A £600 goodwill voucher seems fair recompense over something for which they had no direct control. 

I recognize that they had not direct control over Crowdstrike, but they had direct control over when they could have got us home after that.  My in-laws flew out to Turkey on the Monday without any delays whatsoever, but it still took them 3 days to get us home.  Very frustrating!

MeteredOut

J2msy01 said:

Hoenir said:

A £600 goodwill voucher seems fair recompense over something for which they had no direct control. 

I recognize that they had not direct control over Crowdstrike, but they had direct control over when they could have got us home after that.  My in-laws flew out to Turkey on the Monday without any delays whatsoever, but it still took them 3 days to get us home.  Very frustrating!

Unfortunately, there's no right to compensation in response to causing frustration.

bagand96

J2msy01 said:

Hoenir said:

A £600 goodwill voucher seems fair recompense over something for which they had no direct control. 

I recognize that they had not direct control over Crowdstrike, but they had direct control over when they could have got us home after that.  My in-laws flew out to Turkey on the Monday without any delays whatsoever, but it still took them 3 days to get us home.  Very frustrating!

Very frustrating yes, but they lost almost an entire days flying in the peak season.  Was a nightmare for them to recover the schedule.  Hard decisions for the operators to make over when to put the rescue flights into the schedule and get people home - should they cancel people's outbound holidays so they can use the aircraft for that? But then they have even more people stranded abroad somewhere else.

For future reference you rights under EC/UK261 regulations means you don't have to wait for the original operator to get you home.  You could have booked flights on another airline and claimed those costs from TUI.

If you're unhappy with their response you could escalate by either using AviationADR or taking them to small claims court for your compensation. Everyone will agree that the initial IT issues were extraordinary circumstances so you'd have to try and construct an argument that the resulting delays were within TUI control - that will be an uphill battle.

eskbanker

bagand96 said:
For future reference you rights under EC/UK261 regulations means you don't have to wait for the original operator to get you home.  You could have booked flights on another airline and claimed those costs from TUI.

The regulations themselves only go as far as stating that the airline is responsible for "re-routing, under comparable transport conditions, to their final destination at the earliest opportunity", rather than actually giving passengers the unilateral right to do their own thing and reclaim.

Obviously in the real world there will be situations where the best offer an airline makes is unsuitable, or they fail to offer anything, or can't be contacted, so in such situations the pragmatic resolution is to DIY and reclaim, but it's not an unfettered right as such.

bagand96

eskbanker said:

bagand96 said:
For future reference you rights under EC/UK261 regulations means you don't have to wait for the original operator to get you home.  You could have booked flights on another airline and claimed those costs from TUI.

The regulations themselves only go as far as stating that the airline is responsible for "re-routing, under comparable transport conditions, to their final destination at the earliest opportunity", rather than actually giving passengers the unilateral right to do their own thing and reclaim.

Obviously in the real world there will be situations where the best offer an airline makes is unsuitable, or they fail to offer anything, or can't be contacted, so in such situations the pragmatic resolution is to DIY and reclaim, but it's not an unfettered right as such.

I believe case law has determined that Article 8 "rerouting" does not need to be on the same air carrier.  In the OP's situation if other flights were available on other airlines then I believe this would meet "earliest opportunity" far better than a 5 day wait does.

But yes, you make a fair point that it's not explicitly stated in the regulations.

eskbanker

bagand96 said:

eskbanker said:

bagand96 said:
For future reference you rights under EC/UK261 regulations means you don't have to wait for the original operator to get you home.  You could have booked flights on another airline and claimed those costs from TUI.

The regulations themselves only go as far as stating that the airline is responsible for "re-routing, under comparable transport conditions, to their final destination at the earliest opportunity", rather than actually giving passengers the unilateral right to do their own thing and reclaim.

Obviously in the real world there will be situations where the best offer an airline makes is unsuitable, or they fail to offer anything, or can't be contacted, so in such situations the pragmatic resolution is to DIY and reclaim, but it's not an unfettered right as such.

I believe case law has determined that Article 8 "rerouting" does not need to be on the same air carrier.  In the OP's situation if other flights were available on other airlines then I believe this would meet "earliest opportunity" far better than a 5 day wait does.

But yes, you make a fair point that it's not explicitly stated in the regulations.

Agreed - in this particular case, I suspect that OP wasn't aware that it would be a five day wait with Tui, given the reported lack of communication, but yes, 'the earliest opportunity' can certainly be with a different airline and if OP had asked Tui to get the family on an earlier flight and they'd refused to do so when one was available, there would have been a strong claim to get the costs reimbursed if booking directly themselves.