Flight delay and cancellation compensation, Easyjet ONLY

GJP wrote: »

Hi There. Can anyone help me? I have written to easyjet by recordeded delivery twice and have had no reply. I have emailed and phoned twice (telephone calls are to india) asking for the CEO address. Carolyn McCall but nobody seems to know!!! Does anyone have her address for I can write direct to her regarding flight compensation (6 hour delay from Nice in July 2012). Thanks for any help.

Try writing to the CEO at:
easyJet Airline Company Limited
Hangar 89
London Luton Airport
Bedfordshire
LU2 9PF

I've had the following response from Easyjet, after writing to Carolyn McCall and then chasing it up a week later.

'Thank you for your email to Carolyn and I am sorry for the delay in responding. I have reviewed the situation with regards to your flight which was delayed overnight on 30/09. I can confirm that the reason this flight was delayed was because the aircraft planned to operate your flight had a technical issue earlier in the day which resulted in two aborted take-off's.

As this issue was identified during the operation of the aircraft and not as a result of planned maintenance this means that we deem the event to be an extraordinary circumstance and as such does not give rise to compensation under the provisions of EC261/2004.

We remain sorry for the inconvenience you were caused but can confirm we will not be offering compensation for this delay and that this is our final position in this matter.

Yours Sincerely

Graeme MacLeod
Head of Customer Operations '

Centipede100 wrote: »

Try clicking on the links to 'extraordinary circumstances' in the FAQs above for a better and legal definition of the phrase. Although you have linked to an interesting article, this does lean towards the airline's view of EC since by definition law firms are touting for airline business...

That was a very interesting reading - thanks for flagging. I did smile reading some of the tendentious descriptions of how unfair the ECJ had been - as you say, they're clearly pitching to be the airlines' lawyers of choice!

That said, I was struck that their main point was that the Wallentin-Hermann judgement actually did give significant rights to passengers, and that airlines could not at the moment much rely on the "extraodinary circumstances" caveat for technical issues (the judgement "was far too broad in its scope, covering almost all technical shortcomings discovered on an aircraft at the last moment, and excluding the vast majority of technical faults from the scope of extraordinary circumstances").

Absent a change in the law, the airlines will need to pay up.

kimwoo83 wrote: »

Have come across this with reference to 'exceptional circumstances'

http://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=2ff88ccb-7233-4291-abd7-ea4b26293cdd

That's a good read Kim.
So it looks like the airlines have conceded that no further appeals can be founded, and instead are lobbying for a revision to the ruling, as a 3 hour trigger for compensation is too short a time for an aircraft that 'goes tech' at the last minute.
So this is potentially the future: (copy/paste)


Representatives of the European Commission have confirmed informally that we can expect the following in a legislative proposal by the end of this year:

Existing rights will be confirmed, not expanded. The intention is to fine tune the rights, clarify passenger rights and make the enforcement of those rights more effective
The Regulation will be adjusted to take account of financial limits so compensation will be more proportionate
Extraordinary circumstances will be better defined so as to reflect the CJEU judgments and either include a nonexhaustive list of extraordinary circumstances within the text of the revised Regulation, or as an Annex to the Regulation. The advantage of not including a non-exhaustive list in the text would be that it would not have to be submitted as part of the legislative proposal and would not as a consequence require a co-decision with the European Parliament and Council. If the non-exhaustive list is contained in an Annex to the revised Regulation, it could be adjusted by the use of delegated acts, so as to quickly take account of changes of circumstance and further CJEU rulings as they emerge
The Extraordinary Circumstances Working Group, which includes the UK CAA’s Safety Regulation Group and seven National Enforcement Bodies, has been going through instances of delay and cancellation caused by technical shortcomings in aircraft and consulted with certain airlines’ ops teams, and found that more often than not, the delay or cancellation was justified. The findings of the Working Group, which will report back to the European Commission, may lead to a less restrictive application of the principles laid down in the CJEU judgment in the case of Wallentin – Hermann, and a more consistent approach to the treatment of claims for compensation for delay and cancellation arising from aircraft “going tech” at the last minute
The Sturgeon ruling, giving fixed compensation payments to passengers on delayed flights will be written into the revised Regulation, but the length of delay triggers are likely to be extended out to 6, 9 and 12 hours from the Sturgeon trigger of 3 hours or more
There is likely to be a cap imposed on the obligation on airlines to provide accommodation in extraordinary circumstances to 2 nights and an allowance of €80 per night per passenger for accommodation. This will be balanced by the introduction of contingency plans for the repatriation of passengers stranded at airports where there is mass disruption, such as during the recent volcanic ash crisis, which will include looking at responsibility being taken by local public authorities to provide alternative temporary accommodation
There will be stronger rights of recourse against third parties (such as airport authorities and air navigation service providers) so that airlines can get real rights of redress against such parties to recover costs of care and assistance. It is envisaged that a new article will be included in the text of the revised Regulation stating that any contract or law limiting or excluding a third party’s liability will be considered illegal.

Can you copy the bit on here where the airline state that the claim has been 'sanctioned' please.
I wonder if they have agreed the claim or not, that's all.
The advice will be different depending on what they are actually saying.