Ryanair giving wrong reason for cancellation - can you still claim compensation?

pinkzebra

Hello
My daughter’s Ryanair flight from Madeira to London FR388 (28/4/25) was cancelled. They were on the plane, with their seatbelts on. They were first delayed 15 minutes, then were told they missed their slot, and would have to wait on the plane for up to two hours. After about a hour, they had the safety demonstration, and then were told it had been cancelled. 

After waiting in a long queue (that was expected), they were handed a slip of paper with a phone number to call, to rearrange flights, and a link to the EU261 compensation page. 

The whole rebooking flight thing is another story, as they could only offer her a flight six days later!! And told her to just book a flight back with another airline. So she did that (at great cost) and has submitted the expenses for that. 

But as for the EU261 compensation, the link they gave her says she can’t claim compensation. ‘Reason: The runway and/or terminal was closed, and that was out of our control’. 

But this is not true! All the other flights that afternoon and evening took off (with the exception of a few Lisbon and Porto ones). 

  I have screenshots of the departures and my daughter has photos she took of the other planes, from her seat!

I accept there was a power outage in Spain and Madeira, but Madeira airport was fully functional, and Madeira had no power issues at all. 

The reason they were given on the plane was ‘that they missed their slot, and they weren’t allowed to fly over Spain due to the power outage’. (But all flights were going over Spain as normal!).

Do you think she can challenge their reason? The first flight she could get back was 24 hours later. And as I said, she’s claimed the expenses for that (awaiting response). 

How would she go about challenging it? (If she can). And do you think her insurance would pay out for this delay?? My feeling is that the crew were out of time. She said the crew were implying from the first delay that they wouldn’t be going anywhere. 

Hoenir

pinkzebra said:

The reason they were given on the plane was ‘that they missed their slot, and they weren’t allowed to fly over Spain due to the power outage’. (But all flights were going over Spain as normal!).

Without power. ATC system's would have been knocked out . Greatly restricting and limiting traffic flow. 

Voyager2002

I suggest she writes back pointing out that the reason stated was false, and that you have evidence that the runway/terminal that she was using was open and operating throughout the day. If they know they are in the wrong they might give up then, otherwise she could engage a solicitor (EU claim is the most obvious).

eskbanker

pinkzebra said:

How would she go about challenging it? (If she can). And do you think her insurance would pay out for this delay?? My feeling is that the crew were out of time. She said the crew were implying from the first delay that they wouldn’t be going anywhere. 

Crew going out of time is a symptom rather than a cause, i.e. Ryanair would be relying on the reason for the delay causing the crew to go out of hours.

In terms of next steps, in between trying to claim directly from Ryanair and taking legal action for recovery, there is the option of ADR once you have Ryanair's final response:

https://www.aviationadr.org.uk/how-to-complain-about-a-ryanair-flight/

Westin

pinkzebra said:

But as for the EU261 compensation, the link they gave her says she can’t claim compensation. ‘Reason: The runway and/or terminal was closed, and that was out of our control’. 

But this is not true! All the other flights that afternoon and evening took off (with the exception of a few Lisbon and Porto ones). 

  I have screenshots of the departures and my daughter has photos she took of the other planes, from her seat!

I accept there was a power outage in Spain and Madeira, but Madeira airport was fully functional, and Madeira had no power issues at all. 

The reason they were given on the plane was ‘that they missed their slot, and they weren’t allowed to fly over Spain due to the power outage’. (But all flights were going over Spain as normal!).

Do you think she can challenge their reason? The first flight she could get back was 24 hours later. And as I said, she’s claimed the expenses for that (awaiting response). 

How would she go about challenging it? (If she can). And do you think her insurance would pay out for this delay?? My feeling is that the crew were out of time. She said the crew were implying from the first delay that they wouldn’t be going anywhere. 

There were many delays as airspace restrictions over Spain and Portugal slowed air traffic down and slot delays in some case exceeded 310mins.  Heavily impacted were Lisbon (LIS), Porto (OPO) as well as Seville (SVQ), Madrid (MAD).  Flow rates of traffic in those areas slowed and many airlines had to cancel flights.  This impacted not only flights to/from Spain and Portugal, but to other places that use their airspace.