Easyjet cancelled flight

Woodburn1968

EJ canceled flight from Alicante to Glasgow on 5th September (after initially delaying it for an hour) provided hotel in Alicante for two nights as flight on 6th September required 4 hour stopover in Belfast which I was not prepared to do and opted for return on the 7th September - submitted compensation claim which has been refused - response from EJ air traffic control restrictions substantially regulated the air space due to capacity and staffing issues, which resulted in long delays to flights as aircraft waited for air space ‘slots’ to operate, sometimes for several hours. Ultimately and in the case of this flight, the delays pushed our crew into their maximum legal operating hours. There are strict industry wide rules on the number of hours our crew are allowed to work. To protect the safety of our customers and crew, these hours cannot be exceeded. We do take reasonable measures to avoid delays and cancellations to our flights by having replacement crews and spare aircraft available in our network. In the circumstances, these options were not possible as the cancellation to your flight was a direct result of air traffic control restrictions.
At this stage can I move to contacting Aviation ADR?  have submitted expenses receipts etc, all of which have been accepted apart from taxi cost as I only had photo showing amount on meter, date, time and place - Alicante airport.  Would appreciate any advice as bit confused by which law to quote many thanks 

eskbanker

The relevant legislation is clumsily labelled as Regulation (EC) No 261/2004 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 February 2004 establishing common rules on compensation and assistance to passengers in the event of denied boarding and of cancellation or long delay of flights, and repealing Regulation (EEC) No 295/91 (Text with EEA relevance) (legislation.gov.uk) but is generally referred to as UK261, and AviationADR will be fully conversant with it.

You can escalate to them once you have EasyJet's final response - do you have anything with which to challenge their assertion that the root cause was ATC restrictions (which does indeed absolve them of liability to pay compensation)?

Woodburn1968

I only have the email which they sent as quoted above.  Can I accept their email as final response? 

bagand96

ATC delays would be deemed extraordinary circumstances beyond the airlines control meaning that compensation wouldn't be payable.  Unless you have any information or evidence to suggest there was another reason for the cancellation, you may find the AviationADR route has the same outcome.  

For future reference you didn't have to wait until easyJet could get you home, you could have rerouted on another airline and claimed the cost back from easyJet.

eskbanker

Woodburn1968 said:

I only have the email which they sent as quoted above.  Can I accept their email as final response? 

But if you don't have anything that counters their version of events, there wouldn't appear to be any point in escalating - what would you be saying to AviationADR?