Outbound easyJet flight cancelled no notice

[captainbluesky]

Hi flyers

Really need some definitive advice here please. All avenues open for consideration including easyJet direct, letter to CEO, EC261, small claims court, Simon Calder, Martin Lewis money programme and Watchdog programme.

a) Saturday 8th July LGW to TFS flight EZY8037 1635 scheduled departure, delayed to 1710 then 1810
b) Whilst on the walkable ramps at the gate just before the air bridge, an easyJet rep announced the flight was delayed further due to the flight crew exceeding their flight duty hours and they were trying to source a standby crew
c) We were told to return to the gate seating area and after a while were told the flight was now cancelled, to collect our bags and go to manage booking on the app to see our options
d) Earliest next LGW to TFS flight was Tue 11/7 which was no good for us as the flight cancellation was not any notice to get another flight on easyJet within 24 hours and also too late to cancel our pre-booked hotel and private transfer. We will have missed half our week’s holiday and arrived too late to celebrate our wedding anniversary
e) Spoke to 2 x easyJet reps near the bag drop area and asked if we booked new outbound tickets ourselves with another airline would we be covered for this cost by easyJet in the circumstances. They both said yes 100% covered for these costs plus lost transfer costs etc
f) We searched Skyscanner and found direct BA flights from LHR to TFS on Sun 9/7. We booked 2 x business tickets direct on BA website as the only choices were 3 seats in economy plus at £837 each or 2 seats in business at £630 each with separated row seats
g) Subsequent cancellation email from easyJet stated cancellation was beyond their control and due to extraordinary circumstances. However they did not state the actual reason we were told verbally at the gate.

Hugely disappointing and very negative experience. Surely easyJet know that summer is their busiest time of year and should plan their crew, capacity, routes, scheduling etc accordingly well in advance of ticket sales?

Please advise us how to approach our claim for the new flight costs, transfer cost, train cost home and 1 x night lost hotel. Total cost c. £1,520.

[Anna]

EJ has cancelled about 1800 flights this summer, it’s had a lot of coverage (including on here).
Submit a claim for your extra costs plus cancellation compo to EJ, making it very clear that CE was the cheaper option (though I suspect this is going to confuse them). If you have no satisfactory response after, say, 4 weeks, open a case via ADR – this is very quick and easy to do and EJ seem to take notice of them.
If you didn’t make a written record at the time of who said what, to whom, and exactly when about the reason, make a record now with as much as you can remember.
It’s not clear what the extra transport and accommodation costs relate to, some of this may be for your travel insurance.

[Bill]

https://www.easyjet.com/en/help/boarding-and-flying/delays-and-cancellations

click cancelled flights on the link above

you will see:

Alternative transport to my final destination

If your flight has been cancelled, we will try to get you an easyJet flight to your final destination within 24 hours of your original flight.

You can search for available flights and choose which one you want to transfer on to on Manage Bookings.

If there are no easyJet flights available to get you to your destination within 24 hours, you have the option to transfer to another airline, take a train, bus, or hire a car.

The alternative transport must be under comparable transport conditions (e.g. economy or standard fare) to your destination, and you will be entitled to claim reasonable transport costs back. If you need additional support or special assistance, please contact our team.

Please ensure you obtain a detailed itemised receipt. For more information on how to claim back expenses or for further help please refer to our expenses page, alternatively, you can contact us.

Please note that you cannot claim for both a refund for your flight and rerouting on alternative transport.

Also on the same page you will see:

Claiming back expenses

In the unlikely event that we can’t arrange hotel, meal, or transport costs directly for you on the day of your disrupted flight, you may be asked to pay for reasonable costs yourself. You can claim back expenses on our expenses page.

To check what you are entitled to under the regulation please read our notice of rights for delayed and cancelled flights.

Unfortunately, we can’t cover other costs such as, pre-booked hotel stays, airport parking or missed activities, but your travel insurance may.

All expense claims must be supported by valid itemised receipts or invoices on headed paper as proof of purchase. We cannot accept credit card receipts as proof of payment.

Link to claim expenses:

https://www.easyjet.com/en/claim/welfare

[captainbluesky]

Thanks Anna and Bill for your advice.

The extra transport costs related to losing the pre-booked taxi transfer from TFS to the hotel on Sat 8/7 c. £66, getting a train home from LGW on Sat 8/7 c. £30 and then paying for a railair coach on Sun 9/7 to get to LHR for the new flights c. £19. Then there was the loss of 1 x night pre-booked accommodation at the hotel in Tenerife on Sat 8/7 c. £169. Plus the new one way flights on Sun 9/7 totalling £1,260. Grand total c. £1,544 out of pocket.

I queried the exact reason/s for the cancellation with easyJet yesterday online, they checked the ‘disruption’ report. They initially said “I have checked the report that was sent to us and the delay is an extraordinary one meaning easyJet will not pay the EC261 compensation”. I asked again what were the exact reason/s and they said “It states that it was due to Air traffic control issues.” This is the first I have heard of this reason. At the gate on Sat 8/7 we were all told the flight was delayed further due to the flight crew exceeding their flight duty hours and they were trying to source a standby crew.

Do you have suggestions please re: how to pursue to EC261 compensation in light of the above? We wasted a whole day at Gatwick Airport on Sat 8/7 and based on the verbal reason given to us at the gate (differs to the reason given online by easyJet yesterday) we deserve EC261 compensation also at the bare minimum for our loss of time, stress etc on Sat 8/7.

[JDB]

captainbluesky wrote:

Thanks Anna and Bill for your advice.

The extra transport costs related to losing the pre-booked taxi transfer from TFS to the hotel on Sat 8/7 c. £66, getting a train home from LGW on Sat 8/7 c. £30 and then paying for a railair coach on Sun 9/7 to get to LHR for the new flights c. £19. Then there was the loss of 1 x night pre-booked accommodation at the hotel in Tenerife on Sat 8/7 c. £169. Plus the new one way flights on Sun 9/7 totalling £1,260. Grand total c. £1,544 out of pocket.

I queried the exact reason/s for the cancellation with easyJet yesterday online, they checked the ‘disruption’ report. They initially said “I have checked the report that was sent to us and the delay is an extraordinary one meaning easyJet will not pay the EC261 compensation”. I asked again what were the exact reason/s and they said “It states that it was due to Air traffic control issues.” This is the first I have heard of this reason. At the gate on Sat 8/7 we were all told the flight was delayed further due to the flight crew exceeding their flight duty hours and they were trying to source a standby crew.

Do you have suggestions please re: how to pursue to EC261 compensation in light of the above? We wasted a whole day at Gatwick Airport on Sat 8/7 and based on the verbal reason given to us at the gate (differs to the reason given online by easyJet yesterday) we deserve EC261 compensation also at the bare minimum for our loss of time, stress etc on Sat 8/7.

If EasyJet has given you a final decision, you can escalate the matter to AviationADR or take it to MCOL (Google them for instructions) but you do need to wait for that response before starting either process.

The stress, inconvenience etc. don’t get you UK/EC261 compensation; in this type of case it’s paid for delays/cancellations and airlines do have an ‘extraordinary circumstances’ get out. The verbal reason you were given at the the gate isn’t relevant for a successful claim and is anyway hearsay. An airline can claim ‘extraordinary circumstances’ for a crew going out of hours caused by ATC issues, but they would need to prove that (to the civil, balance of probabilities standard) but will usually only do that when required by the adjudicator or court. There are parts of your claim that EasyJet isn’t required to pay, eg the lost hotel night which is a matter for travel insurance as are some of the transport costs you mention. The elements an airline is required to pay under Article 9 ‘Right to Care’ are quite specific – check before making the claim. In respect of the flight tickets you bought, you will need to demonstrate that you made sufficient efforts to contact EasyJet to find an alternative rerouting and that when those efforts you made failed, the costs you incurred in buying replacement tickets were “necessary, appropriate and reasonable”. In making your claim to AviationADR or MCOL, don’t use up too many words re the stress, inconvenience etc. – we all understand how you must have felt, but the decisions to be made are more clinical, so emotional words risk obscuring the facts which are your friend. Set out a clear chronology/timeline of events, the facts, the costs and the relevant pieces of legislation that apply.

[Anna]

I used ADR recently after trying to get a refund out of EJ for 6 months. It was an extremely simple and user-friendly process and EJ paid up within 4 weeks. If there’s a next time I won’t spend nearly as much time trying to reason with EJ’s CS via email!