Flight delay and cancellation compensation, Easyjet ONLY

appeared in court on monday with Mr. Nicholas of Easyjet.
Ref: flight cancelled due to knock on effect of bad weather.
Judge found that knock on effect of bad weather was an extraordinary circumstance and defence relied on atricle 15 of preamble:
15)



Extraordinary circumstances should be deemed to exist

where the impact of an air traffic management decision

in relation to a particular aircraft on a particular day

gives rise to a long delay, an overnight delay, or the

cancellation of one or more flights by that aircraft, even

though all reasonable measures had been taken by the

air carrier concerned to avoid the delays or cancellations.



Then came the second test, whether EJ had employed all of its resources short of intolerable sacrifices etc. although the court looked more to reasonableness rather than all resources. EJ had a list of flights delayed that day but n ot the length of delays. a brief recess was granted for Mr. Nicholas to produce the information.
He was unable to do so other than generally across europe. He said that EJ have 75% back up crew and on that day 25% of flights were delayed by more than 3 hours putting crew out of hours.
The court took the view that this left 50% cspacity spare crew.
EJ said yes but not necessarily at Gatwick but had no data.
I suggested they could be bussed or flown in. Mr. Nicholas said the spare crew may not be at locations where EJ have flights coming in to Gatwick. I suggested they could be flown in on other airlines.
Court seemed to agree and judgement was in our favour..

I asked Mr. Nicholas, a charming fellow, why EJ would send a solicitor to court to defend a €250 claim. With travel time this was his whole working day. He said that there is a feeling claimants are relying on EJ not appearing in courts far from Luton and the message is they will appear and defend.

Oh well

Well done zzx! Glad you had the competence and courage to face them down.

yes seemed uneconomic but Mr. Nicholas produced the figure of 75% cover across network.

On the first point articles 14 and 15 of preamble seem to contadict each other and the judge was persuaded that article 15 should pertain.
It seems persuasive given that it says an aircraft which has been delayed by atc decisions earlier in the day is an extraordinary circumstance.

yes, it was twice delayed earlier in the day by atc decisions based on bad weather. Inbound flight to Gatwick was delayed 2 hours 39 minutes from mahon.

B ut at scheduled take off time there was no bad weather and many flights, including EJ flights took off.

The judge was persuaded by preamble 15 that ATC decisions to a particular aircraft allow for extraordinary circumstances and in her opinion knock on effects can be extraordinary. Whats essential in her judgement is that the extraordinary circumtances are linked to the aircraft not the flight. and preamble 15 seems clear on this.

Having lost on this point we should probably have lost on the second as the flight was already delayed by over 3 hours. when the plane arrived it was subject to a further atc delay to allow earlier delayed fights to take off, this put it over hours. That there was then no crew was probably irrelevant. Could EJ have prevented the cancellation by bringing in another crew? They also needed another plane earlier in the day but did not know that there was going to be a further atc delay.

Confused but victorious

money banked!

Worth noting for fututre; EJ have 75% spare crew.
Judge required data on number of flights where spare crew were used on that day.
25% used so 50% spare. LGW is major hub so EJ should provide crew.

But what does anyone think about preamble 15?