Delayed Flight Compensation

Chuck Norris 2021

Hi all,

our holiday flight was recently delayed by 18 hours and I'm wondering what is the best route to take to claim compensation? Has any one used any of the online companies that do this and if so what is the cost? In addition to the delay we incurred additional costs, such as losing a night in a hotel, transport home and then back to the airport, food etc.

Thanks in advance.

endofrainbow

Depends on a number of factors: reason for delay? destination? what did the company you booked with say? travel insurance?

sgarvan

EU261 will give you up to €400 compensation per person dependent on the distance of your flight. You can normally submit this straight to the airline. Online companies will take 25% of your compensation.

Regarding the rest you may not get that from your airline and may need to claim from your travel insurance.

If you booked a package holiday all of the items you mentioned might be covered in that. But a package holiday would normally put you in a hotel and get you back to the airport.

Chuck Norris 2021

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119390097#Comment_119390097

Thanks! I'll submit it myself in that case.

Chuck Norris 2021

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119390080#Comment_119390080

We were delayed because the cabin crew ran out of hours and they had no replacement crew. Destination was Milan Bergamo, I booked the flights direct with Ryanair, and I have annual travel insurance but haven't looked at that yet. If you have any further advice to add to sgarvan's I'd be very grateful.

Thanks!

10-10-20

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119390291#Comment_119390291

So you did none of the research, not even a thought as to fees, didn't even think about your own travel insurance, and expect it all to be handed to you?

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119390327#Comment_119390327

The modern way.

Chuck Norris 2021

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119390327#Comment_119390327

A bit confused by your comments to be honest. I came here looking for advice. I have done some research, but as I haven't been through this process before I thoughts I'd try and get an opinion of someone who has. If the fees you refer to are the claims company, then obviously they're not going to work for free, but I have to weigh that up against the cost of my time doing the leg work myself.

ted1

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119390327#Comment_119390327

This is his research. Why bother with travel insurance? Ryanair are obliged to pay. They used to charge €2 per ticket to cover eu261 claims but had to include it in the price, they collect about €200M+ per year to cover payouts

https://amp.theguardian.com/business/2011/mar/30/ryanair-levy-compensation-eu261

peejay1986

Sorry to piggyback on someone else's thread but didn't want to start another.

Was delayed 4+ hours yesterday with Ryanair (MAN DUB) and caused me to missed my onward journey at Dublin. Seeing as it was weather related, is there any way to claim on this?

endofrainbow

Weather related delays are not covered under EU261. Was your onward journey another flight? Travel Insurance might be an option (depending on the terms of your policy).

RainInSummer

It kind of rankles that Ryan Air are stating that the recent delays were weather related when other carriers were flying out at the same time. They all experienced the same weather yet they could fly.

I was watching flights leave from inside the airport.

We got the no compensation line from them earlier. Seems a bit rich, but ultimately if it comes to it they can afford a better legal team than me.

thebiglad

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119996905#Comment_119996905

I'm no Ryanair fan but I would be sure if they could fly, they would - they need the plane to the destination to bring back or move on another 200 passengers and all on your flight and the next flight regardless of compo or not must be rebooked so these are tickets they cannot sell.

I remember being on a Ryanair flight out of UK where snow was so bad had to walk from train station to airport, they loaded the plane (with those who had made the airport) and taxied to the end of the runway, pilot went out to check the conditions and then came back to tell us, we are not taking off - took 4 days to get an alternative flight home due to low availability.

Possible also the airport you were flying into had restrictions and so they were not allowed to go.

elperello

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119996905#Comment_119996905

The real reason the flight was delayed is Ryanair could not get deiced when others could. The airport was open. Go through their complaint procedure and then proceed to Flight Rights.ie. Won't cost anything to go that far.

Sheep Shagger

Whilst not Ryanair, our US carrier cancelled out flight from Dublin and put us on one two days later due to 'weather issues' despite other airlines flying the same day to the US

The airlines refused compensation so we we went to one of the online clailm companies given we had nothing to lose. After 3 months they said they didn't think we'd win so declined the case. It seems weather can be used as a reason to get out of e261 compensation.

Flight rights.ie was useless IMO, to be expected for a government agency I guess.

Jim2007

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120035119#Comment_120035119

It does not matter what other airlines are doing nor even the conditions at the airport you are taking off from…. If the incoming aircraft that was due to take you to your location was impacted by weather conditions then it is out of the control of the airline.

endofrainbow

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120035119#Comment_120035119

EU261 specifically excludes weather related delays and cancellations. The airline are however, obliged to provide you with duty of care. In this instance it would be a matter for your travel insurance depending on what your policy covers.

Sheep Shagger

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120035265#Comment_120035265

Yeah I knew that but my point was the airline blamed weather bit other airlines still managed to fly the day our flight was cancelled. In fact the same airline cancelled flights from Dublin earlier the same week because of 'weather'....reckon it was more likely to consolidate half empty flights

Weather is used as an excuse to avoid paying compensation and it seems there's little can be done to challenge this

grimm2005

Just to add my recent experience claiming delayed flight compensation from Ryanair.

Flying from Nuremburg to Dublin in December, flight was due to depart at 6:15am, we were fully loaded up and ready to depart at that time, but it had started snowing that morning so we were waiting on the plane to be de-iced, 30mins later the captain came on to say that there's actually a mechanical issue with the plane and we would have to disembark back to the terminal with at least 2 hours delay while they fly a new plane in from Stansted. We went back to terminal and we were sent a text message with a €4 voucher for food in the terminal and an updated flight time of 10am. I didn't use the voucher as food options were limited and would also mean going back through schengen checks. Flight time was delayed a couple of times and eventually we boarded at 11:45am and arrived back in Dublin without incident.

Next day I applied for compensation via the Ryanair website here: https://onlineform.ryanair.com/ie/en/eu-261

I was flying with my partner that I live with but we're not married so technically not family so just to avoid any potential nonsense, I filled out the form that allowed me to seek compensation on her behalf and had her sign it along with a copy of her ID, as requested in the form and uploaded this. It's a fairly simple and painless procedure that I completed in about 10 minutes; booking number, name, email address, bank details was pretty much all that was required, along with the extra form for travelling companion which looked for same details sans bank details. I received an email confirmation with ID for my request. Around 7 days later I got a response to say my request was valid and €500 would be sent to my bank account in 10 working days but appeared after 3 days. So it was 10 days from submitting form to receiving compensation.

Overall a very easy and positive no nonsense experience. The delay itself was unfortunate, particularly as we could have slept through the night in our hotel and check out at a normal time, had we known we wouldn't be flying until midday but ultimately the compensation paid for our entire stay in the hotel so it was probably worth the few hours inconvenience. I received emails from Ryanair throughout the delay, offering refund or flight change, which obviously were not viable options given where I was and choosing one of these would void any compensation owed. I received no advice regarding applying for the compensation so it's important to know your rights with these things as I can only imagine most of those on my flight possibly never bothered following up.

Hopefully this is helpful for someone!

dinneenp

If you go through the steps on a site that make the claim for you, before you submit you'll see how much compensation you're entitled to. And then submit it yourself.

I had a flight delayed which resulted in me missing my connection and being re-booked for the next day. I've submitted my claim almost 1 month ago (BA) and just got automated emails saying we're still working on it, very busy...

endofrainbow

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120098641#Comment_120098641

A lot of these companies take a commission so something to be aware of if thinking of using them.

dinneenp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120098912#Comment_120098912

I'm agreeing with you and wouldn't use one of them. But, by going through the process BUT NOT USING THEM, you can see exactly how much you'll get.

train.up.

Hi, Our flight from Dubrovnik to Dublin via Frankfurt was cancelled within the 14 day period. Entire journey was to take 5-6 hours.

We were give two options, (a) refund (b) alternative flight to Munich on the same day, however flight to Dublin the following morning.

We opted for refund which is in progress apparently (we have had very poor communication in this regard)

We had to book alternative flights ourselves and cut out trip short by a day so quite an annoying episode.

No real reason given for the cancellation, we got notice 12-13 days from the scheduled flight time, so can't have been weather etc.

Just wondering should we proceed with compensation claim or hold off until refund info comes through?

Just a thought, the flight was booked third party so maybe cancellation was sent through by Airline (lufthansa) to third party earlier, if so would that work against any claim even though we hadn't received the required notice?

Cheers

mrcheez

My flight from Ireland to Turkey was cancelled around 8 hours before the flight was due to depart.

It was back in February and I'm only now getting a chance to review this.

From what I recall it was because of bad weather, does the EU261 cover this, or is it excluded due to weather being the cause?

Would my travel insurance compensate me?

It didn't actually cost me anything, bar losing 3 days off the start of my holiday, so not sure if the travel insurance would compensate me.

endofrainbow

EU261 doesn't cover travel delays/cancellations. Whether or not your travel insurance would cover it would depend on your policy cover.

Tarabuses

Ryanair have denied my claim for compensation following a delay of 6h 48m between scheduled arrival time and actual arrival time. They do not deny the delay but say it was due to a lightning strike suffered by the operating aircraft.

Is this a valid excuse under EU261?

Nigel Fairservice

Probably. EU261 only applies to things within the control of the airline.

Sheep Shagger

In my own experience airlines can call something weather related to get out of paying...it's very hard to prove otherwise.

After getting declined I tried one of the third party claim sites and after a few months even they said they wouldn't take the case on as it was highly unlikely we would win they said in their experience.

deisemum

I flew with Aer Lingus from Seattle to Dublin last weekend and the flight was delayed over 3 hours before it left, we were told the delay was due to a fault with the taps in the toilets - no water to wash your hand so could only use sanitiser. That wasn't the worst of it, they didn't have earphones for passengers in economy to listen to the entertainment, not good enough for a long haul flight. Fortunately I had a set in my handbag.

emy

Lufthansa flight delayed for about 40min, due to a storm we were told, so I missed the connection flight to Dublin. Lufthansa customers service were very kind giving three vouchers, hotel one and two for taxi return from hotel. On top of this €400 compensation received. Happy days.

Sheep Shagger

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121112838#Comment_121112838

Wow, €400 for a 40 min delay?