Aer Lingus Cancelled Flight

mactheknife19

So some background
Flight from Lanzarote leaves at 9pm Friday evening. 2 hrs into flight a passenger is taken ill. A nurse on the flights says passenger who is in and out of consciousness will be ok if allowed to lie on the ground. Captain says no he won't fly like that, which I've no issue with as he has the right to make the call. He diverts to Santiago, Northern Spain. Plane lands and it takes about an hour to get the ill passenger of the plane because airport was not well equipped. Another 2 hours sitting on the plane with the odd explanation that they are confirming flight plans. About 1am
Captain says flight is cancelled as they are over there allotted hours. That's fine as that's the rules. He asks us to get off plane as they evaluate options for accommodation. All passengers left at gate and door is closed. There is no available accommodation according to the local ops person. There is no Aer Lingus presence in this airport. Captain and crew bed down on plane while we are just left at gate. Crew even put paper on cockpit windows so they could sleep. Huge issues in airport with regards access to luggage, security, access to food. Nothing was basically provided by Aer Lingus. No communication from captain. New plane was sent out next morning arriving around 11, and we boarded and arrived back in Dublin around 12.45, approximately 12 hrs then we should have. We only found out there was a flight coming from people back home ringing Aer Lingus, and noticing a flight on the DAA site from Santiago. When we landed the air hostess said we were to fill in a form and give to customer service in arrivals. We would be sent a €150 voucher. Looking at the sites regards compensation it would suggest that for cancelled delays it would be somewhere around 250. -400 refund. I think 400 based on non Eu airport and distance. I suppose question is are Aer Lingus short changing us on a monetary value and also by offering a Aer Lingus voucher thus getting repeat business.
Maybe the instance is catagorized as an exceptional reason, although it does not list that on the EU sites

jhegarty

The EU261 compensation doesn't apply for problems outside the Airlines control.

A medical emergency would defiantly fall under this.

RGDATA!

Technically the flight probably doesn't qualify as cancelled but diverted due to emergency?

ScouseMouse

Is Lanzarote not in the EU? I know its the canaries, but while it is a special duty free destination, is it not still part of Spain. If it matters???

TimHorton

You my not be entitled to full compo but the system works .

Just had €1250 (€250/each for 2 Adults 3 Kids aged 11 7 & 4) deposited in my account as compensation for 5 hr delay we had on a British Airways flight from London Gatwick to Barcelona , Quite amazing as I only paid £260 Total for the return flights ,


http://www.rte.ie/news/business/2015/0821/722740-ryanair-compensation-liability/

If people can go back several years to claim then Ryanair will have to pay out millions.

mactheknife19

RGDATA! wrote: »

Technically the flight probably doesn't qualify as cancelled but diverted due to emergency?

The wording from the captain was that it was cancelled, so not 100% sure.

mactheknife19

jhegarty wrote: »

The EU261 compensation doesn't apply for problems outside the Airlines control.

A medical emergency would defiantly fall under this.

Thanks, I understand that maybe the medical emergency is outside of their control. Was looking at the combination of flight leaving 1 hr late, post emergency sitting on the airport tarmac for 2.5 hrs for some unknown reason (although there was some engineers in the cockpit during that time work), and then the cancellation and lack of communication from AL.

mactheknife19

TimHorton wrote: »

You my not be entitled to full compo but the system works .

Just had €1250 (€250/each for 2 Adults 3 Kids aged 11 7 & 4) deposited in my account as compensation for 5 hr delay we had on a British Airways flight from London Gatwick to Barcelona , Quite amazing as I only paid £260 Total for the return flights ,


http://www.rte.ie/news/business/2015/0821/722740-ryanair-compensation-liability/

If people can go back several years to claim then Ryanair will have to pay out millions.

Thanks, so who do I submit the a claim to AL or some central body

slimjimmc

AL, all claims must be made against the airline directly.

cml387

One thing about your account that puzzles me. If the crew were out of hours, why did they send another aircraft?

mactheknife19

cml387 wrote: »

One thing about your account that puzzles me. If the crew were out of hours, why did they send another aircraft?

The other aircraft came from Dublin (I think) with another another crew to take us home. The original aircraft and crew had to remain with the original aircraft. My understanding is that they could not fly until 10-12 hours from when they came out of ours.

ssmith6287

Not slating the op but this is one thing that bugs me with modern society. All over the country we are screaming for humanity. This is a perfect case of a sequence of unfortuneate events leading to what could be construed as greed,

A person fell ill ... out of airlines control
they have to divert because its unsafe to fly to dublin .... out of airlines control
it takes 2 hours on the ground for medics etc to look after patient .. out of airlines control
technically if people leave the plane then the flight has ended ... aviation rules, out of airlines control
Santiago Airport is a sh1thole with terrible facilities ... out of airlines control
No hotels nearby available ... out of airlines control
Safety Rules of flying is they can only work for "x" amount of hours between rest ... out of Airlines control
People looking for compensation despite the whole ordeal being out of airlines control.
Had the plane continued onto dublin and patient died or suffered severe damage then the airline would be crucified.

Like I said im not attacking the op, its just the fact that you brought it up, but its such a modern day attitude that corporations or businesses are the devil and are out there to screw us over at every oppurtunity. The fact they offered comp for something that was completely out of their control shows how good an airline aer lingus actually are.

I think it just screams irony that when an airline diverts to another airport (costing a huge amount of money) to care for somebody that is ill, that our humanity pleas go out the window and its all about money

Melendez

This post has been deleted.

mactheknife19

ssmith6287 wrote: »

Not slating the op but this is one thing that bugs me with modern society. All over the country we are screaming for humanity. This is a perfect case of a sequence of unfortuneate events leading to what could be construed as greed,

A person fell ill ... out of airlines control
they have to divert because its unsafe to fly to dublin .... out of airlines control
it takes 2 hours on the ground for medics etc to look after patient .. out of airlines control
technically if people leave the plane then the flight has ended ... aviation rules, out of airlines control
Santiago Airport is a sh1thole with terrible facilities ... out of airlines control
No hotels nearby available ... out of airlines control
Safety Rules of flying is they can only work for "x" amount of hours between rest ... out of Airlines control
People looking for compensation despite the whole ordeal being out of airlines control.
Had the plane continued onto dublin and patient died or suffered severe damage then the airline would be crucified.

Like I said im not attacking the op, its just the fact that you brought it up, but its such a modern day attitude that corporations or businesses are the devil and are out there to screw us over at every oppurtunity. The fact they offered comp for something that was completely out of their control shows how good an airline aer lingus actually are.

I think it just screams irony that when an airline diverts to another airport (costing a huge amount of money) to care for somebody that is ill, that our humanity pleas go out the window and its all about money

Think you took my OP wrong. Everything you say above about situations out of AL's control is correct, and I'm not disputing they took the correct actions regards the patient. I'm following Melendez train of thought as to whether they are contractually obliged or not. As mentioned if its built into the pricing then due process now needs to be followed. If not then that's ok with me and I'll accept the voucher.

ssmith6287

Ah yeah i understand where yer coming from... Im prob thinking of a wider scale of ya cant please everybody. And your pretty sound about it. I'd imagine youd have some clowns saying aer lingus are the worst in the world etc.

I know opinions don't matter, but i'd be of the opinion that if its out of the airlines hands then ya shouldn't get anything.

The reason i'm talking about humanity is I'd compare it to the homeless crises nationwide. I'd imagine alot of people making noise will scream human rights with regards to this but if their local council said, right were moving 10 homeless people in either side of your house their tone would change. I didn't mean it as an attack on yerself was more a general look at the way things are.

GerardKeating

ssmith6287 wrote: »

Not slating the op but this is one thing that bugs me with modern society. All over the country we are screaming for humanity. This is a perfect case of a sequence of unfortunate events leading to what could be construed as greed,

But Perhaps (as happens with cases like this) with some hindsight, things could have been handled better.

Once the plane had to divert, the subsequent events were kind of predictable.

Once the pilot knew he was diverting, I would assume he notified Head office, and either the pilot or someone in Head office should start doing the math, predict what would happen and have the replacement craft and crew there at first light.

otto_26

ssmith6287 wrote: »

Not slating the op but this is one thing that bugs me with modern society. All over the country we are screaming for humanity. This is a perfect case of a sequence of unfortuneate events leading to what could be construed as greed,

A person fell ill ... out of airlines control
they have to divert because its unsafe to fly to dublin .... out of airlines control
it takes 2 hours on the ground for medics etc to look after patient .. out of airlines control
technically if people leave the plane then the flight has ended ... aviation rules, out of airlines control
Santiago Airport is a sh1thole with terrible facilities ... out of airlines control
No hotels nearby available ... out of airlines control
Safety Rules of flying is they can only work for "x" amount of hours between rest ... out of Airlines control
People looking for compensation despite the whole ordeal being out of airlines control.
Had the plane continued onto dublin and patient died or suffered severe damage then the airline would be crucified.

Like I said im not attacking the op, its just the fact that you brought it up, but its such a modern day attitude that corporations or businesses are the devil and are out there to screw us over at every oppurtunity. The fact they offered comp for something that was completely out of their control shows how good an airline aer lingus actually are.

I think it just screams irony that when an airline diverts to another airport (costing a huge amount of money) to care for somebody that is ill, that our humanity pleas go out the window and its all about money

The fact a lot corporations try to get as much as they can out of employees while paying as little as possible and businesses are always trying to make as much profit as possible out of people I think the OP is completely correct in asking his questions.

I'm not sure why any educated person would have an attitude of this corporation or that business are looking out for me first before themselves.

whippet

otto_26 wrote: »

The fact a lot corporations try to get as much as they can out of employees while paying as little as possible and businesses are always trying to make as much profit as possible out of people I think the OP is completely correct in asking his questions.

I'm not sure why any educated person would have an attitude of this corporation or that business are looking out for me first before themselves.

That is a tad harsh and a total generalisation.

Some business view going the extra mile as being just as important as milking the bottom line. However sometimes circumstances just dictate that this isn't possible.

If Aer Lingus are guilty as you have charged, you must not have read the buckets of messages recently that were posts to their social media pages praising their extra mile and assistance over the years.

Although I must bow to your superior knowledge of airline logistics and AerLingus had a fully crewed and operational plane hanging around that could have been there a few hours earlier but just though up at HQ "why bother sending it now when we can send it in a couple of hours instead" ... But may be I'm mistaken

smurfjed

AerLingus had a fully crewed and operational plane hanging around

Since people started seeking cheap airfares, the days of having fully crewed aircraft hanging around ceased!

endofrainbow

Can you claim from your insurance? You did have insurance ?

JCX BXC

Imo there should be some sort of fine issued to airlines for lack of communication in these events. It's the one thing that airlines really fail on and is quite annoying and even upsetting for consumers.

otto_26

whippet wrote: »

That is a tad harsh and a total generalisation.

Some business view going the extra mile as being just as important as milking the bottom line. However sometimes circumstances just dictate that this isn't possible.

If Aer Lingus are guilty as you have charged, you must not have read the buckets of messages recently that were posts to their social media pages praising their extra mile and assistance over the years.

Although I must bow to your superior knowledge of airline logistics and AerLingus had a fully crewed and operational plane hanging around that could have been there a few hours earlier but just though up at HQ "why bother sending it now when we can send it in a couple of hours instead" ... But may be I'm mistaken

Can you name me some of those businesses I want to become their customer!.

You must not have read the buckets of messages about their fake advertising deals that don't exist!

If your suggesting I have a superior knowledge of airline logistics because of my comment on saying the OP was correct in at least questioning if Aerlingus was pulling a fast one on him then yes I do!