Easy Jet claiming adverse weather

pckles1

We were delayed a total of 19 hours coming back to Gatwick from Crete.
first flight 11.30pm initially delayed, put us through the gate and waited on the tarmac until 2.30pm then cancelled the flight.
arrived hotel getting to bed at 5am, check out 11am.

picked up 1.30pm for the new 4.30pm flight. New flight delayed until 7pm.
no reasons for either cancellation or delay given until I claimed for compensation.

reasons given were ATC restrictions on the inbound flight to Crete caused by adverse weather causing crew to go over hours.

i have checked weather reports and there was no adverse weather conditions, there has to be extreme weather for this to be a reason. Flight operators know they have to plan for air space slot potential queuing as part of their day to day operations, there were also no standby crew available to staff our flight.

they didn’t put us in the earliest available flight, they didn’t offer places on other airlines. They didn’t fulfil their duty of care obligations, less than 7 hours overnight rest.

they were aware of the cancellation at 00.43 yet we were still stood on the tarmac at 2.30am?

you can guess it, we were turned down for compensation! 

Mark_d

You could try a no win no fee solicitor.  From my experience, it's very difficult to get money out of airlines even when it's clear that their staffing issues are to blame

eskbanker

pckles1 said:

We were delayed a total of 19 hours coming back to Gatwick from Crete.
first flight 11.30pm initially delayed, put us through the gate and waited on the tarmac until 2.30pm then cancelled the flight.
arrived hotel getting to bed at 5am, check out 11am.

picked up 1.30pm for the new 4.30pm flight. New flight delayed until 7pm.
no reasons for either cancellation or delay given until I claimed for compensation.

reasons given were ATC restrictions on the inbound flight to Crete caused by adverse weather causing crew to go over hours.

i have checked weather reports and there was no adverse weather conditions, there has to be extreme weather for this to be a reason.
Have they clarified exactly where the adverse weather conditions were, i.e. they can be en route rather than at either end point?  If it's ATC asserting adverse weather when restricting slots, then the airline isn't in a position to debate the matter.

Flight operators know they have to plan for air space slot potential queuing as part of their day to day operations,
It wouldn't be reasonable to expect them to build hours of slack into every rotation.

there were also no standby crew available to staff our flight.
Again, not realistic to expect standby crews at all airports throughout an airline's network.

they didn’t put us in the earliest available flight, they didn’t offer places on other airlines.
I don't think they'd be seen as unreasonable for flying everyone back on the originally-allocated plane, after passengers and crew had slept.

They didn’t fulfil their duty of care obligations, less than 7 hours overnight rest.
Are you suggesting that there's a minimum number of hours of overnight rest required by the regulations?

they were aware of the cancellation at 00.43 yet we were still stood on the tarmac at 2.30am?

you can guess it, we were turned down for compensation!

Some comments inline above - not saying that you don't potentially have a case but it doesn't sound cut and dried.

sheramber

They didn’t fulfil their duty of care obligations, less than 7 hours overnight rest.

Did you not want home at the earliest opportunity?

jimi_man

If you provide us with the dates of the flight then we can check which might give you some more clarity. 

Just to confirm, ‘adverse weather’ can be anything that causes a reduction of slots which will create delays/cancellations and it’s not necessarily in the U.K.  if it’s ATC (U.K. or en route) then it’s outside the airline’s control and thus won’t be covered by EU/UK261. So it doesn’t have to be ‘extreme’ weather. 

Regarding duty of care it sounds like they did all they could by providing you with a hotel room. I think that’s pretty reasonable.