Ryanair Onward Travel Cost Not Refunded

Hoenir

eskbanker said:

Hoenir said:

greyteam1959 said:

We decided, after being told by the Ryanair rep that we could claim back any 'reasonable expenses', to book a taxi to Leeds.
Cost was £480.
What are other peoples views on the situation ??

Reasonable being the operative word. I'd suggest not. If every passenger on the flight claimed in the same manner the total cost would be stratospheric. 

In isolation you may be right, but in the context of being stranded 200 miles from home in the middle of the night, by a company that was ignoring its legal responsibilities to take care of travel arrangements (rather than just reimbursing), what would you suggest would have been more reasonable?

The fact that it was expensive to fulfil their legal obligations isn't the passengers' problem!

Simply approaching it from the pragmatic perspective that "Dial A Coach" services are not available as far as I am aware. RyanAir may well have been able to eventually source a coach or indeed coaches but with what extended time delay.  Doubt that hanging around an airport for many hours would be acceptable to many passengers. They'd no doubt prefer to attempt to make their own way back. 

eskbanker

Hoenir said:

eskbanker said:

Hoenir said:

greyteam1959 said:

We decided, after being told by the Ryanair rep that we could claim back any 'reasonable expenses', to book a taxi to Leeds.
Cost was £480.
What are other peoples views on the situation ??

Reasonable being the operative word. I'd suggest not. If every passenger on the flight claimed in the same manner the total cost would be stratospheric. 

In isolation you may be right, but in the context of being stranded 200 miles from home in the middle of the night, by a company that was ignoring its legal responsibilities to take care of travel arrangements (rather than just reimbursing), what would you suggest would have been more reasonable?

The fact that it was expensive to fulfil their legal obligations isn't the passengers' problem!

Simply approaching it from the pragmatic perspective that "Dial A Coach" services are not available as far as I am aware. RyanAir may well have been able to eventually source a coach or indeed coaches but with what extended time delay.  Doubt that hanging around an airport for many hours would be acceptable to many passengers. They'd no doubt prefer to attempt to make their own way back. 

OP clarified that the coach option was taken off the table by the airline, so it wasn't the passengers choosing to do their own thing:

greyteam1959 said:

After around 1 hour of waiting the Ryanair representative told us that there were no coaches available to take us to our destination airport, Leeds Bradford.
They told us in no uncertain terms to find our own way home !!

However, the point I was making is that the airline is obliged to arrange that transportation (and/or accommodation), so if they were effectively failing to fulfil their legal responsibilities, it weakens their position to argue about the cost after the event, although obviously the onus remains with the passengers to reclaim the money from Ryanair.

martindow

I did a quick google and got this quote for today.  It didn't allow me to specify a time and I don't imagine midnight journeys will be cheaper.  It doesn't look as if the OP's fare was unreasonable.

eskbanker

martindow said:

I did a quick google and got this quote for today.  It didn't allow me to specify a time and I don't imagine midnight journeys will be cheaper.  It doesn't look as if the OP's fare was unreasonable.

Surely Ryanair aren't saying that £480 is expensive for a taxi (actually from Stansted btw), they're challenging whether use of a taxi at all was reasonable?

Westin

eskbanker said:

martindow said:

I did a quick google and got this quote for today.  It didn't allow me to specify a time and I don't imagine midnight journeys will be cheaper.  It doesn't look as if the OP's fare was unreasonable.

Surely Ryanair aren't saying that £480 is expensive for a taxi (actually from Stansted btw), they're challenging whether use of a taxi at all was reasonable?

Could they also challenge where the taxi went?  Perhaps the airline accepts need for transport to Leeds Bradford Airport, and a taxi being the only likely option at that time of the morning, but has issue with perhaps the home address of the passengers, even if this was in Leeds.

eskbanker

Westin said:

eskbanker said:

martindow said:

I did a quick google and got this quote for today.  It didn't allow me to specify a time and I don't imagine midnight journeys will be cheaper.  It doesn't look as if the OP's fare was unreasonable.

Surely Ryanair aren't saying that £480 is expensive for a taxi (actually from Stansted btw), they're challenging whether use of a taxi at all was reasonable?

Could they also challenge where the taxi went?  Perhaps the airline accepts need for transport to Leeds Bradford Airport, and a taxi being the only likely option at that time of the morning, but has issue with perhaps the home address of the passengers, even if this was in Leeds.

Technically, Ryanair would indeed only be obliged to fund the passengers' transportation to LBA but if they objected to a home dropoff then they'd presumably say that, and it would hardly be a reasonable position for them to take to offer less than a third of the fare if that was the basis of their objection!  Also, Leeds itself is en route from STN to LBA, although obviously we don't know where the dropoff was and it could have been further....

greyteam1959

eskbanker said:

greyteam1959 said:

We decided, after being told by the Ryanair rep that we could claim back any 'reasonable expenses', to book a taxi to Leeds.
Cost was £480.

Was there any discussion about what constituted 'reasonable' in those specific circumstances?  Presumably there was a planeload of people all in the same boat of wanting to get back to Leeds/Bradford, so ideally the rep should have clarified which options would be reimbursable, even though that still wouldn't stop their employer playing hardball after the event if it was just verbal dialogue....

No discussion he just kept repeating the phrase 'reasonable' expenses.
He would not commit himself further.

greyteam1959

Hoenir said:

eskbanker said:

Hoenir said:

greyteam1959 said:

We decided, after being told by the Ryanair rep that we could claim back any 'reasonable expenses', to book a taxi to Leeds.
Cost was £480.
What are other peoples views on the situation ??

Reasonable being the operative word. I'd suggest not. If every passenger on the flight claimed in the same manner the total cost would be stratospheric. 

In isolation you may be right, but in the context of being stranded 200 miles from home in the middle of the night, by a company that was ignoring its legal responsibilities to take care of travel arrangements (rather than just reimbursing), what would you suggest would have been more reasonable?

The fact that it was expensive to fulfil their legal obligations isn't the passengers' problem!

Simply approaching it from the pragmatic perspective that "Dial A Coach" services are not available as far as I am aware. RyanAir may well have been able to eventually source a coach or indeed coaches but with what extended time delay.  Doubt that hanging around an airport for many hours would be acceptable to many passengers. They'd no doubt prefer to attempt to make their own way back. 

The rep kept insisting that the company that they contracted coach hire from had no coaches available.
When verbally pushed he told us they were not allowed to hire coaches from any other company.

greyteam1959

Westin said:

eskbanker said:

martindow said:

I did a quick google and got this quote for today.  It didn't allow me to specify a time and I don't imagine midnight journeys will be cheaper.  It doesn't look as if the OP's fare was unreasonable.

Surely Ryanair aren't saying that £480 is expensive for a taxi (actually from Stansted btw), they're challenging whether use of a taxi at all was reasonable?

Could they also challenge where the taxi went?  Perhaps the airline accepts need for transport to Leeds Bradford Airport, and a taxi being the only likely option at that time of the morning, but has issue with perhaps the home address of the passengers, even if this was in Leeds.

The taxi took us to Leeds Bradford airport NOT our home address.
Our car was parked at the airport.

Hoenir

eskbanker said:

Hoenir said:

eskbanker said:

Hoenir said:

greyteam1959 said:

We decided, after being told by the Ryanair rep that we could claim back any 'reasonable expenses', to book a taxi to Leeds.
Cost was £480.
What are other peoples views on the situation ??

Reasonable being the operative word. I'd suggest not. If every passenger on the flight claimed in the same manner the total cost would be stratospheric. 

In isolation you may be right, but in the context of being stranded 200 miles from home in the middle of the night, by a company that was ignoring its legal responsibilities to take care of travel arrangements (rather than just reimbursing), what would you suggest would have been more reasonable?

The fact that it was expensive to fulfil their legal obligations isn't the passengers' problem!

Simply approaching it from the pragmatic perspective that "Dial A Coach" services are not available as far as I am aware. RyanAir may well have been able to eventually source a coach or indeed coaches but with what extended time delay.  Doubt that hanging around an airport for many hours would be acceptable to many passengers. They'd no doubt prefer to attempt to make their own way back. 

OP clarified that the coach option was taken off the table by the airline, so it wasn't the passengers choosing to do their own thing:

greyteam1959 said:

After around 1 hour of waiting the Ryanair representative told us that there were no coaches available to take us to our destination airport, Leeds Bradford.
They told us in no uncertain terms to find our own way home !!

Ok. I'll rephrase my earlier comment. What would you expect RyanAir to be able to do at that time of the night?  The rep on the ground is surrounded by a plane load of tired concerned passengers desperate to get home. This didn't mean that RyanAir wouldn't provide transport at all or indeed provide assistance in some hours time. Just not at that precise moment. Travel myself by coach frquently. Drivers are highly regulated as to hours. Another reason why there might be an extended delay in arranging suitable transport. 

Buddying up with other passengers would have reduced the taxi cost considerably on a per head basis. Would have enabled others to get back to Bradford in a timely manner as well.