Grounded on a Ryanair Flight for 3 hours

gazzer

My brother was planning to go to England last Sat to see the Man Utd v Liverpool game. He was going with a group of friends and they had decided to fly to Birmingham as it was a lot cheaper and then had a coach hired from Birmingham to take them to the match.

The flight was due to leave at 6.30am. They were on the plane and seated by 6.10am. 6.30am came and went and the plane hadnt moved. By 7am still no movement and then there was an announcement that there was a technical fault and that the passengers would be kept updated.

At this point my brother and a few of his friends started ringing other friends of theres who were on flying to Manchester at 7.45am. They kept in contact with them to see if their flight was going to go. At 7.25am everybody was on the Manchester flight. My brothers friend rang him to say that there was over 30 empty seats on their flight. Naturally my brother asked if they could be transferred to this flight. They were told by the air hostess that that couldnt be allowed as the gate had closed.

By 8am my brothers flight still hadnt moved and there was no information forthcoming. It wasnt until after 9am that they were told that the flight was being cancelled and they were handed boarding cards for a 2.45pm flight (which was too late to see the match). They had been sitting on the plane for 3 hours and hadnt moved an inch. They were not given any refreshments or any food.

Does my brother have any comeback with this? I was under the impression that if a flight didnt leave within 2 hours of it scheduled time that passengers had to informed of exactly what was going on and within that 2 hour limit other arrangements had to be made. I say this as I was in Heathrow back in March waiting to board a flight to Dublin. The flight was due to go at 9.30am. When it didnt we were told that we would be told one way or another by 11.30am as that was the cut off point for a decision.

Anyway does anybody have an info on rights etc that I could pass onto my brother?

Thanks

Vas_Guy

I was also on that flight and your description is very accurate, I felt sorry for the fans who were going to see the match some of them had their children who were crying.

The Liverpool fans all got up and were about to leave the plane when the Ryanair guy was handing out the boarding passes and he had to call for assistance who arrived i.e. a manager who managed to get thema ll to sit down.

I use this flight regularly and this is the first time this has happened.

marmurr1916

The rules are outlined here:

http://www.consumerconnect.ie/eng/Learning_Zone/Guides_To_Consumer_Law/Travel/Delayed%20flights/

Airlines often try to claim that the flight cancellations aren't their fault to avoid having to pay compensation.

According to the OP, the cause of the flight cancellation was announced as a technical fault which presumably was something the airline was responsible for.

If the airline refuses to pay compensation you presumably have enough evidence from witnesses to show that they said the cancellation was due to a technical fault.

If they still don't pay up you may be able to take them to the small claims court. The procedure is outlined below:

http://www.citizensinformation.ie/categories/justice/courts-system/small_claims_court

D500B

Appearently there is a new company that will make a case for you. They take 20% of comp as commission and nothing if it comes to nothing. Probably worth in these cases as it can be too much hassle to follow up yourself and they can follow up on if it was actually outside the airlines control to canlce a flight. I can't rememebr the name but there was an article in the Irish times a week or two ago about it.

marmurr1916

The company is called Euclaim. If your claim is successful they'll take 27% of any compensation. If it's not successful there's no fee. www.euclaim.ie

trellheim

the easiest thing for them to do was to for the crew and pax to just take the next inbound and use that, but that would have been the smart thing to do [ every body shifts down one plane ] this works at Dublin since there's so many RYR planes ; then when you've got the broken bird fixed it just slots back in again

It's not as if they're short on airplanes.

Cue all sorts of people telling me why it can't be done

MOH

trellheim wrote: »

the easiest thing for them to do was to for the crew and pax to just take the next inbound and use that, but that would have been the smart thing to do [ every body shifts down one plane ] this works at Dublin since there's so many RYR planes ; then when you've got the broken bird fixed it just slots back in again

It's not as if they're short on airplanes.

Cue all sorts of people telling me why it can't be done

Because then you delay everyone on every flight?

Sinall

I have used the EUClaim website, they have a really interesting database type thing which stores info on all flights and you put in what happened to you - ie, if you were delayed/flight cancelled etc and it tells you straight away if you are entitled to compensation! Apparently airlines are not making it clear at all to passengers what they are entitled to under the directives.

The flight I was enquiring about on the website was cancelled in Feb 2007 - now I just have to try and find booking emails/boarding cards etc!!

Bluetonic

gazzer wrote: »

Anyway does anybody have an info on rights etc that I could pass onto my brother?

The airline did everything as per it should be.

EC Regulation 261/2004 is the regulation which covers how delays should be handled. The flight in question was within the EU and less than 1,500KM so is subject to refreshments etc.., only when the delay is over 3 hours. In this case it was clearly not subject to a delay of over 3 hours.

The flight was due to leave at 6.30am. It wasnt until after 9am that they were told that the flight was being cancelled.

I am making the assumption that the flight was cancelled prior to 9.30am.

Your only entitlements are to look for a refund of the un-used part of the ticket (DUB-Birmingham) as the delay was over 5 hours from your original departure to the offered alternative flight. You won't be entitled to a return on any return flight.

Under EC Regulation 261/2004 you are not entitled to financial compensation if your flight is delayed.

Under the Montreal Convention 1999 there is also provision for air passengers to seek compensation from the airline carrier for delays. If a passenger is delayed financial compensation must be offered. However the carrier is not liable if it can show that it took all reasonable measures to avoid the delay or it was impossible to do so which it will be able to prove without a shadow of a doubt.

Hopefully this helps.

EC Regulation 261/2004

FlutterinBantam

trellheim wrote: »

the easiest thing for them to do was to for the crew and pax to just take the next inbound and use that, but that would have been the smart thing to do [ every body shifts down one plane ] this works at Dublin since there's so many RYR planes ; then when you've got the broken bird fixed it just slots back in again

It's not as if they're short on airplanes.

Cue all sorts of people telling me why it can't be done

You delay everybody on the other flights

You screw up the maintenance schedule

You screw up the crew schedule

Otherwise it's a good practise.:P

Sinall

I think EU Claim has retained an Irish law firm (Lavelle Coleman) to be their solicitors in Ireland and the UK - so if the airlines don't respond to the claim that you make with EU Claim, then EU Claim take them to court on behalf of the consumer. And you don't pay for this as it is EU Claim who does it. I think this is really interesting, as they are really challenging the airlines over their terrible treatment of passengers! It will be interesting to see what happens.

Bluetonic

Sinall wrote: »

I think this is really interesting, as they are really challenging the airlines over their terrible treatment of passengers! It will be interesting to see what happens.

Of course in this case the airline did nothing wrong.