Can we file a claim against Airlines

[adztec77]

hi Recently I booked a flight to Cyprus with Excell Airlines. I can no longer travel as the "free" villa I was to be staying at (a friend of a friends) is no longer available.

Now I was booked to travel mid september and have cancelled the £433 booking, this is giving more than adequate notice as it was cancelled a couple of weeks ago. They charged me a cancellation fee of £108.00. This doen't seem very fair to me as they have nearly 2 months to re-sell my tickets which is loads of time.

Can I write to them and follow the correct procedure etc for filing a complaint and asking for my money back, but where do I stand legally if I was to file a claim with the courts?

Surely £108.00 for cancelling nearly 2 months in advance is daylight robbery, does anyone have any comments on this?

[calconnor66]

check your policy wording they usually have something in it about canellation charges, dont know whether it is worth trying to get the flights changed to another date you may just incur and admin cost. You could always complain in writing and threaten them with action , but I really do not know if it will do any good if they have written it into their policy. Also I dont think your travel insurnce would cover you but it is worth a look

[The Lantana]

I'm a newbie to this site, so I may not be correct in what I say here. My take is this:

Using the Bank Charges example, they are unlawful unless Bank's can show they are not a penalty - even though their T and C's specify them. You assert in court they are a penalty unless the Bank shows otherwise. The Bank would do this by disclosing their actual costs v's their charge to you, which they have declined to do thus far. This is how come so many charge refunds are being made.

I think it should follow that it's for Excel to show that their cancellation charges closely relate to the actual costs / loss suffered by them, if any. This would mean, presumably, that if they sold those seats at the price you booked OR better you should pay admin costs at a rate they can justify. If they can show they were unable to sell the seats, then you pay the whole amount.

Excel should be able to produce the flight manifest which would show how full or otherwise the aircraft was. They should also, albeit with some digging, be able to identify seat sale prices subsequent to your cancellation. The risk for you here is that if they can show they sold a few last minute seats at £20 each you may end up forking over a few quid.

If I were Excel I would argue that regardless of the outcome in your case (i.e. seats sold or not sold), some flights do depart with empty seats after cancellations by passengers and the charge is therefore fair because it is simply impractical to calculate the specific costs on a case by case basis, unless refunds were held over until the flight had finally departed. Excel may also be able to cite ABTA industry codes approved by the OFT or some such stuff.

I'd take the above thoughts to your local Trading Standards office for an informal chat and see what they say, or maybe some of the more experienced contributors to this very fine site may comment. Having thought this through as I write, my feel is you don't have a case - I'm sorry to say.

Good luck and please keep us informed.

[siterly]

Interesting question.
Ryanair cancelled our flight from Italy last November. Being Ryanair, no right to care was provided, we had to arrange a hotel for the night, transport from airport to hotel, transport to another airport 3 hours away by rail etc.
I lodged a claim for my expenses, Ryanair's answer was no, claim on your holiday insurance. I challenged this response but no answer from Ryaniar.
I took out a court summons via the small claims court. Ryanair did not put in a defernce within the specified time. Then, by magic, judgement for me was set aside on the grounds of juristriction (Ryanair being Irish). I sent the court details of a recent case where somebody sued Ryanair in the UK and won (precedent was then set) and an extract from a daily broadsheet where their chairman more or less agreed Ryanair should be considered British as the majority of its business is based in the UK.
The court sent me a letter asking for a further £100, to appeal the judges's decision.
I DID ALL THE WORK PROVIDING DETAILS TO THESE RECENT EVENTS. IF I COULD FIND THEM WHY COULDN'T THE JUDGE. SECONDLY, WHY DID THE JUDGE NOT KNOW ABOUT OR CONSIDER THESE DETAILS IN HIS ORIGINAL DELIBERATION?
Anybody legal person out there have a view on how I should proceed?

Cheers,

[us72us]

hi Recently I booked a flight to Delhi with Gulfair through last minute.com. I can no longer travel as the "the embassy refused to issue the visa, because my passport is not valid more then 6 month, that why i had to send it to the embassy to renew it and that take about 3 weeks.
Now I was booked to travel 10/08/2007 and have cancelled the £439.22 booking, this is giving more than adequate notice as it was cancelled a couple of 8 days ago before the travel. They charged me a cancellation fee of £45.00. and refused to refund the ticket money, they only refund the tax all what i get is £93. from £439.22 This doen't seem very fair to me as they have nearly 9 days to re-sell my tickets which is loads of time.
Can I write to them and follow the correct procedure etc for filing a complaint and asking for my money back, but where do I stand legally if I was to file a claim with the courts?
I have e-mail them but they refused to refund the money.

[salfordric]

any relevant cancellation charges should be shown on the endorsements box on your ticket or eticket confirmation, if the rules of the fare you purchase state the cancelleation charge which most cheaper fares do then you dont have a leg to stand on sadly

[salfordric]

re gulf air, problem is the fare you purchased was obviously restricted as most econmony tickets are in some way. Its a passngers responsibility to ensure they are covered the relevant visa before purchasing a ticket. The fact that u cancelled 8 days prior is not relevant as fare rules and cancellation charges are applicable from the second the ticket is issued, so you still be charged if you cancelled 11months in advance. Only possibility of getting it back is if fistly the reservations agent didnt correctly advise you of the cancellation policy, or internet site did not adequatly draw your attention to rules on fare. In that case you can argue the toss with gulf air but in all honesty they are quite within their rights to do it so they most probably will