Flying is by any measure a hideously complicated business involving the ferrying of millions of people and their bags all over the world every hour of every day and scheduling timetables across multiple time zones.
On top of that, airlines have to organise food, fuel, airports and all the rest with the best laid of plans potentially disrupted by weather, strikes, wars, technical issues, personal tragedies and a whole lot more besides.
Given all that is going on, it is hardly surprising then if sometimes things go wrong, and equally unsurprising when those who are most impacted want to find out who is responsible.
“I am hoping you could help me with a complaint I have ongoing with Aer Lingus relating to compensation I feel that I’m entitled to, but Aer Lingus are not inclined to agree with me,” begins the mail from a reader called Paula.
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Paula was due to fly from Izmir, Turkey into Dublin with the airline last October with a scheduled departure of 10pm.
It wasn’t to be.
“The flight was delayed by several hours and rumours started to spread among the passengers that the inbound flight from Dublin was diverted to Sofia,” she writes.
While in the airport in Izmir she was able to use the Flight Radar app to track the incoming flight and sure enough the rumour mill was on the money and the Turkey-bound flight had been diverted to Sofia and had only taken off for Izmir hours after it was supposed to arrive.
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The flight tracking app said the plane was due to arrive in Izmir at 2am – some four hours after the plane was supposed to leave with Paula on board.
The rumour mill in the airport went into overdrive and word on the concourse was that the flight had been diverted because of a disruptive passenger. The plane duly touched down and passengers eventually started boarding at 3am.
But just as the plane began to taxi down the runway the passengers were told that it could not go any further because the “crew had exceeded their flight hours for the day and for them to continue would be illegal,” Paula says.
So she and everyone else on the plane disembarked and “had to wait to collect luggage, get refunds for any duty free that was purchased and finally be bussed to a nearby hotel. We were not in our rooms until 5am,” she says.
A new flight was arranged for 2pm the following day and it eventually took off at 4pm.
“At check in, each passenger was provided with a copy of Regulation EC 261/2004 and it was suggested that we would all be entitled to compensation,” she says. “My understanding is that where a flight is delayed over three hours you may be entitled to compensation of up to €400 where the distance of the flight is between 1,500km – 3,000km. To qualify, the delay must be the airlines fault (eg technical issues or staffing problems).
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“Since we had been advised that the reason for the delay was that the crew had exceeded their flight hours (ie an operational issue) and we had been provided with a copy of the regulation along with instructions on how to make a claim, I assumed that we would all be entitled to this compensation.”
Since last November, she has pursued the same complaint on multiple occasions. “They’re declining my request on the basis that my flight was delayed due to a disruptive passenger, when this was clearly not the case. Granted, there was one on a previous flight (apparently), but there must be a distinction between these flights. I feel they are relying on a bit of a domino effect here and I wonder how far you can take it?”
She says she is “not able to accept their version of events and asked for a copy of their flight report which would outline their case. I feel that they must have to prove to me their version, surely?”
She says she has reached the point where “the compensation isn’t that relevant (though who couldn’t do with an extra €400 these days?), but about the injustice of their actions. Their response is not reflective of the spirit of the regulation and has left me really disappointed with Ireland’s ‘premier’ airline.”
A couple of things strike us about Paula’s mail.
While she might think the airline should provide her with a copy of their flight report, we can think of no situation in which any airline would comply with such a request. And while we understand where she was coming from when she says that the reason for the delay in her flight taking off was operational, it seems reasonable to us that if the flight that was due to bring her home was delayed for reasons that were beyond the airline’s control then a delay in her flight was both inevitable and unavoidable.
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We have attended small claims court hearings where passengers with other airlines have similarly argued that they were due compensation because delays they faced were not as a result of their flight but a previous one that had a knock on effect and the judges have ruled in the airlines’ favour.
We did highlight the story to the airline and a spokeswoman said Aer Lingus “sincerely regrets the inconvenience caused by this disruption to Paula’s journey. The pilot had to divert the inbound flight to Sofia to offload a disruptive passenger which ultimately resulted in the cancellation of her flight. Customers affected by the cancellation were provided with care and assistance, including hotel accommodation. As the cancellation was due to extraordinary circumstances that were outside the airline’s control, compensation under Regulation EC 261/2004 is not payable.”
We also heard from another reader who had a considerably more distressing story involving interactions with Aer Lingus.
The partner of this reader’s sister died suddenly earlier this year at a time when she was travelling with another family member in Spain. “Our parents were also away on holidays,” she says. “I contacted Aer Lingus straight away to get us all on to the next available flights home.”
Our reader was told that while she would need to pay the fare difference and change fee for the flights, it “would be refunded once I was able to submit a death certificate”.
“The cost was €700 to change our flights home, and €763.60 to change our parents’ flights home,” she says.
She paid the required fees and sent Aer Lingus the death certificate but was dismayed when in response Aer Lingus said it would only refund 10 per cent of the fare difference, which amounts to €60.
In our experience, Aer Lingus tends to be very good at handling bereavement cases and so it turned out when we contacted the airline.
In a statement, the airline said: “We deeply regret the issues this family encountered after changing their travel plans due to a bereavement. We have now processed a full refund of the change fees and fare differences paid by the customers. Aer Lingus understands that this was a difficult time for this family and we apologise that we fell short on this occasion.”
