Advice please on cancelled flight

sylwright

My daughter and her friend flew from Liverpool to Southampton with Flybe on Saturday with a return flight booked for Sunday. They phoned the airport at 5pm to check if there were any delays and told there were none. They arrived at the airport for the flight due to leave at 18.40 and were told there was a 20 minute delay. Once the departure time had come and gone they were then told they didn't know what time their flight would leave and no more information was available until 8.30pm.

I checked the website and could find no status against this flight either on Southampton or Liverpool airports websites. I then phoned Southampton airport and was told that there was a flight airborne coming from Manchester which was late taking off due to thunderstorms but the flight was due to land at 8.40 and would then take about 30 minutes to turn around and would leave for Liverpool at about 9.15pm. At 8.45pm the passengers were told they would be boarding at 9pm. At 9.10 the status of the flight on the Southampton airport website changed to "Please contact your airline" and the arrivals board on the Liverpool airport website had removed the flight number from its listings. It was more than 15 minutes later that the passengers were told that the flight was cancelled.

All the passengers were stranded and the airline offerred them flights the following day (this afternoon) but if they wanted hotel accommodation they had to pay themselves. If they wanted to get back to Liverpool last night they had to arrange that themselves at their own cost.

As my daughter and her friend who travelled with her are both school teachers, they had to be back in Manchester for the following morning. Consequently the friend they travelled to stay with drove them to Birmingham where I met them and drove them the rest of the way home. That meant that both myself and the friend who drove to Birmingham had at least 4 hours driving to do going there and back. We finally arrived home at 2.45am, very tired and very annoyed by the total lack of assistance by the airline.

A number of other passengers were trying to organise taxis and mini buses at their own expense to take them from Southampton Airport to Liverpool airport. I am appalled that the airline did not even lay on a coach to take the passengers who they left stranded to their original destination.

Can anyone tell me what the legal position is on this, and can we claim for the expenses incurred, and the inconvenience. The airline seem to have everything covered in their terms and conditions by defining it as "not their fault" if it was a result of weather conditions etc.

I would welcome any advice please.

jetboy

New EU regs are now in force regarding passenger rights, which on the face of it require Flybe to pay out for this. They will however attempt to wriggle out of it any way they can and the regulations are being appealed in the European courts. Have a read of this..

http://www.eraa.org/050304accompasstwebFAQsv2.pdf

What I suggest you do is write to the airline handling agent to find out the real reason for the cancellation before challenging Flybe. I'll stake money on the fact it was either aircraft tech fault or lack of crew. Check the terms and conditions also on the flybe website..it should refer to the new legislation..but its probably out of date!
Hope this helps.

MiM

I'm about to start a small claims court case against Ryanair on a similar basis.

When you've followed the above steps and they deny your claim - which they will - you then submit a detailed claim to the Air Transport Users Council (details from Internet search).

This may resolve your case, otherwise it's off to small claims.

Keep details records of all communications and expect a long battle. But don't give up!

WiseInvestor_2

I look forward to the news headlines that Ryanair (and others) have gone bust simply because millions of Britons want to have their cake and eat it. The only people we're hurting is ourselves.

Good Luck!

MiM

We were left stranded overnight in Rome at a time when every hotel was booked up for the Pope's funeral.

Ryanair had switched the return flight to a different airport without making any attempt to tell us, even though they had our mobile numbers.

Do you think we should accept abuse like this just because it's cheap?

Fatboy_NSS

No matter how far you take it I don't think you have a claim against the airline here. Even if the reason the flight was cancelled was lack of crew, this would have been because the delay in Manchester ate into the crew's time meaning they wouldn't have been able to complete the rest of the day's flying within their time limits. As this wasn't the airline's fault they don't have to provide anything other than your choice of a refund or a seat on the next available flight.

Personally I agree with WiseInvestor. If you choose not to pay the extra for travel insurance then this is your choice, but you've only got yourself to blame if things go wrong.

sylwright

Thanks for the advice.

I do feel that the airline should have some obligation to get you back to the destination, even if its by coach. I am not trying to get compensation for the sake of it, and incidentally Fatboy_NSS, my daughter has got travel insurance but we haven't checked the level of cover on that. Never crossed my mind that we could claim on the insurance. Also not quite sure how we have ourselves to blame now things have gone wrong.

This experience has definitely put me off ever booking any flights with Flybe again, I would be interested to know what would have happened if the flight was with British Airways. Would they have also shirked their responsibilities?

fifeken

British Airways would have got you on the next available flight, and they tend to have more available than the budget airlines or laid on a coach given the distance you were travelling. Alternatively, they have agreements with the other airlines so you may have flown home with another "major" airline (although in either case the flights may not have been direct). If nothing was available that day they would have fixed you up with accomodation. They certainly wouldn't leave you to your own devices as the budget companies do.

khizman

fifeken wrote:

British Airways would have got you on the next available flight, and they tend to have more available than the budget airlines or laid on a coach given the distance you were travelling. Alternatively, they have agreements with the other airlines so you may have flown home with another "major" airline (although in either case the flights may not have been direct). If nothing was available that day they would have fixed you up with accomodation. They certainly wouldn't leave you to your own devices as the budget companies do.

yep
been stranded a couple of times in countries where i was a transit passenger,
expect a "scheduled" airline to give you a 4/5* hotel, 5mins phone call to you loved ones and full board meals at the chosen hotel.