Flight delay and cancellation compensation, Easyjet ONLY

ChuiMartinez · 21 June 2016 at 1:56PM

What happens if easyjet say strike action caused them to cancel a flight but the strike action ended before the flight was due to depart. Not only that it ended before the arriving flight was scheduled to depart to the originating airport!

Details:
Scheduled departure date: 17/06/2016 21.05
Flight Number: EZY3252
Italian strike action on 17/06/2016 from 12.00-16.00 local time
Arriving flight: EZY3251 from London Stansted (17.05) to Naples (20.20)

To me this does not seem to be 'extraordinary circumstances' but I am sure easyjet will claim so. This becomes particularly perplexing when you check flightaware and see that several other flights departed before and after the easyjet flight and other arrived into Naples both within the strike period and afterwards.

Two questions:
1. does anyone have experience of successfully claiming EU261 in such cases?
2. does anyone have experience of being reimbursed for expenses? We had to travel to rome, stay the night and get a flight first thing with BA. Easyjet were offerign a flight 2 days later from Naples which wasn't suitable at all. We did unfortunaly take the refund on the app albeit after we had arrived back into London (completely unaware of the potential reprecussions. although the rules do say they also need to cover costs of flying back to the origial destination).

Thanks

Tyzap · 21 June 2016 at 2:11PM

Hi Chui,

Question 2, did EJ comply with the following? If not they should have! and this will strengthen your case.

4. PASSENGERS’ RIGHTS
i. General right to information Article 14(1) of the Regulation specifies the text of a notice which must be displayed at check-in in a manner clearly visible to passengers. This notice should be displayed physically or electronically in as many relevant languages as possible. This has to be done not only for check-in at the airport desk, but also on kiosks at the airport and on-line.
In addition, whenever an air carrier gives partial, misleading or wrong information to passengers on their rights, either individually or on a general basis through media advertisements or publications on its website, this should be considered as an infringement of the Regulation in accordance with Article 15(2) read in conjunction with Recital 20 and may also constitute an unfair or misleading commercial business-to-consumer practice under Directive 2005/29/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council32.

ii. Information to be provided in case of delay
Article 14(2) of the Regulation provides that an operating air carrier denying boarding or cancelling a flight must provide each passenger affected with a written notice setting out the rules for compensation and assistance. It further states that the carrier ‘shall also provide each passenger affected by a delay of at least two hours with an equivalent notice’. The requirement to provide affected passengers with a detailed written explanation of their rights thus applies explicitly to cases of denied boarding, cancellation and delay. However, considering that a delay can be suffered at departure but can also materialise at the final destination, the operating carriers should also seek to inform passengers affected by a delay of at least three hours at their final destination. Only in this way can each passenger be properly informed in accordance with the express requirements of Article 14(2)33. Such an approach is fully compliant with the Court ruling in the Sturgeon case34, which established that passengers who suffer a delay of at least three hours must be treated in the same way as passengers whose flights are cancelled, for the purpose of the right to compensation under Article 7 of the Regulation.
This is without prejudice to information requirements established by other provisions of Union law, in particular Article 8(2) of Directive 2011/83/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council35 and Article 7(4) of Directive 2005/29/EC on unfair commercial practices. The omission of material information and the provision of misleading information on the rights of passengers may also constitute an unfair or misleading commercial business-to- consumer practice under Directive 2005/29/EC concerning unfair business-to-consumer commercial practices in the internal market.

ChuiMartinez · 21 June 2016 at 2:19PM

Thanks for the response. It's difficult to say. The notifications on cancellation kept changing between the app, their website and their customer service agents. The departure time changed (sometimes showing different times on my wifes phone to mine) but it was eventually cancelled as we were on our way to the airport. At that point the queue was huge and an agent met us at the back and provided us a leaflet. We never made it to the front given timing. The app showed only a potential flight back on sunday (2 days later) and we were told our expenses would be covered, so we left the airport and headed to rome as that was the quickest option home.

Information we were given is pretty much here. I should have read it better as by that point we had pretty much decided what our options were so we left the airport and booked flights.
http://www.easyjet.com/en/help/at-the-airport/delay-and-cancellations

In hindsight i don't know why i took the refund after we arrived back

How do they define providing notice? There was no proactive notice (i.e. a text message) that we recieved. We had to check the app

Tyzap · 21 June 2016 at 2:47PM

Hi again Chui,

Best read the full article here....

http://ec.europa.eu/transport/themes/passengers/news/doc/2016-06-10-better-enforcement-pax-rights/c(2016)3502_en.pdf

From page 12 onwards, also read Vaubans guide if you've not already, just Google it.

Good luck.

JPears · 21 June 2016 at 3:35PM

Chui, in respect of compensation under reg 261/2004 it doesn't matter that you took the refund, as this is an option under the regulation.
When did you receive notice of the cancellation? At check in or just before?
I believe this was a poor operational decision to cancel the flight, irrespective of the cause of cancellation, paticularly if you wern't informed until check in.
Read Vauban's most excellent guide and get your claim in. Expect the proverbial BS from EJ in reply (see posts above yours)

ChuiMartinez · 21 June 2016 at 3:41PM

Thanks, I'll print the regs and the guide now. The notification of cancellation was pretty much as we got to the airport. Until that point there was poor information across the numerous sources. In fact I pretty much had figured it out beforehand on the basis the arriving flight had not left Stansted.

Would it be easier to simply take the travel insurance route for expenses incurred?

JPears · 21 June 2016 at 3:57PM

You can claim both (but don't tell insurance company or they will try to wriggle out of it).
I think EJ could try argue that they are not liable for expenses because you took a refund. My arguement would be that you didn't take a refund until after you had returned, so EJ effectively still had a duty of care at least until the flight offered 2 days later. You cannot claim the flight with BA cost from EJ, so claim that from your insurance.
Point out to EJ that you are only claiming the 1 night in a hotel, not 2 that they would have had to pay (and food and drink) if you had taken their alternative flight offering.

mattnkate08 · 21 June 2016 at 4:38PM

JPears wrote: »

Easyjet are spouting a whole crock of bovine excrement.
Lightening strikes, especially on the previous flight are NOT EC. This has been won in court.
Write back making your letter an NBA then proceed to court papers if this has no effect.

sorry what is a NBA? i wrote back saying ...

RE: EC261AUTH - EPLXBD6 Reference ID: 113231869
Katie and Matt Brown 20/06/2016
To: customer.service@easyjet.com

Dear Sir/madam,

I can also confirm that under the EC regulation 261/2004 , The below list of items would not be considered an extraordinary circumstance and the airline can not defend:
Bad weather affecting a previous flight, impacting your flight time - Whilst the bad weather affected the previous flight (lightening hitting the plane) this was not our actual flight therefore it impacted our flight delay but is not considered as an extraordinary circumstance.
Overbooked flight - Because the plane sent out to carry out our flight was 26 rows instead of 31 rows this hugely impacted the amount of time we were sat on the plane as they staff hadn't adequately been dealt with before hand despite knowing the plane coming in was far too small for the fully booked flight, meaning we were sat on plane for around 2 hours before they sorted out the issues surrounding the over crowding of the plane.
Any other scenario or situation that the airline can take reasonable measures to prevent - Whilst people were encouraged to leave the plane if they did not need to carry out the journey due to missed business or other appointments, there was not adequate security checks as they disembarked the plane, resulting in longer delays as having to check hand luggage and baggage on the plane.

further to this you have not addressed any of our other complaints regarding the lack of staff and information around the terminal to issue refreshment vouchers, and to ask when the flight completely disappeared from the screens.

I would like a full investigation to my whole complaint, and rather than making the mistake of continuous lies, as we encountered from your staff during the whole delay process and on the flight, and as we were passengers on this experiencing this first hand i would rather not have my integrity questioned.

If i do not get a satisfactory response and compensation that is due as per confirmed with my solicitor i have been advised to escalate this to the Civil Aviation Authority.

Yours Faithfully

Mr and Mrs Brown

JPears · 21 June 2016 at 5:14PM

Notice before Action, sometimes known as a letter before action.
If you label the letter as an NBA somewhere, with a time frame for response, usually 2 weeks, it informs the airline that no further notice will be given before you take legal action.
It is a requirement before completing and submitting small claims court papers.
Read Vauban's guide, this should have a more succinct and better worded letter/email to send to EJ.

Tyzap · 21 June 2016 at 5:17PM

ChuiMartinez wrote: »

Would it be easier to simply take the travel insurance route for expenses incurred?

I was trying to establish whether you had been correctly informed of your rights before you took the BA flight. Had you not I would have said that your expenses should be paid by EJ. The same applies when you accepted a refund for your flight.

Furthermore, if your flight was not due to arrive until 4+ hours after the strike had ended your flight was not directly affected so you may still have a claim.

Have you tried the flight delay calculators on line?

EJ seem to have been cancelling flights when others are re-routing and doing their best to get passengers to their destinations. I can only surmise that this is to save money.

Good luck.

Flight delay and cancellation compensation, Easyjet ONLY

Comments

Categories

Get our FREE Weekly email full of deals & guides - and it’s spam-free