ryanair:change of schedule

[sillybhoy]

:mad:hi.any help much appreciated.

i recently booked flights with ryanair.flght 1:uk to france,flight 2 france to spain.i received a email from ryanair telling me that the schedule for flight 2 had been changed.it now leaves before flight 2 leaves the uk.

i was offered a refund for flight 2 but not for flight 1(which is obviously of no use to me now).

they do also have direct flights available either the day before or the day after(these are however much more expensive than the sum of my 2 original bookings).

do ryanair have any obligation either a:to offer me a direct flight or b;to reimburse me for both flights.

any advice on my rights and/or a decent contact at ryanair to seek resolution would be brilliant.

thanks

[honeybee13]

Hi, this has happened to us as well, but only with one Ryanair flight and no connecting one. I understand your problem, but don't know the answer, sorry.

 

Did you book both fllights at the same time? I'd hazard a guess that it could help your case. Also, do Ryanair have a flight on the day before maybe, if that helps? I mean to the French airport.

 

Where do you want to get to in France, if you want to tell us?

[perplexity]

When was the flight booked?

 

A consumer owns the right cancel a distance contract under section 10 of the Distance Selling Regulations, within a cancellation period of seven working days beginning with the day after the day on which the contract is concluded.

Statutory Instrument 2000 No. 2334

 

Otherwise, you need to refer to EU Regulation (EC) No 261/2004 :

 

EUR-Lex - 32004R0261 - EN

 

According to Article 14

 

"An operating air carrier denying boarding or cancelling a flight shall provide each passenger affected with a written notice setting out the rules for compensation and assistance in line with this Regulation."

 

Did Ryanair do that?

 

If not, a prosecution of the offence is possible under the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008, in so far as "it causes or is likely to cause the average consumer to take a transactional decision he would not have taken otherwise.".

[honeybee13]

That's very interesting, perplexity. When we were caught in this last year, when Ryanair started tinkering with all the times and days of flights, we were only offered a refund. And it took 2-3 weeks to be credited to us, even though we had to pay for a new flight straight away.

 

So if you booked early and got a good fare, you could be re-booking much nearer to the date of the flight and pay quite a bit more........

[perplexity]

It is hardly a secret that the idea is to suck in the suckers with the cheaper fares in order to steer toward an extra cost once they've taken the time off work to commit to a course of action, etcetera.

 

The Terms of the Unfair Trading Regulations allow for a remarkable range of activities to be prosecuted as offences but the legislation is recent, already overdue when it came to force so the power that it grants is not yet so widely appreciated, which is to regret that a prosecution is not going to happen before the fuss is made to wake them all up.

 

A good local Trading Standards office may be worth a try, if there is such a thing as a good one, rather than the OFT or the The Air Transport Users Council. if Ryanair were scared of them none of this would be happening to start with.

[honeybee13]

Our county Trading Standards are not bad, actually, and helped us on several occasions.

 

Perplexity, how do we stand if it's an Irish-based company and we buy tickets over the internet, do you know please?

[perplexity]

You should be better off to complain about a business elswhere in Europe because it gives the choice of legislation, home or abroad, and no theoretical restriction apart from the complication!

 

Within the European Union "A consumer may bring proceedings against the other party to a contract either in the courts of the Member State in which that party is domiciled or in the courts for the place where the consumer is domiciled."

 

(c.f. Article 16) EUR-Lex - 32001R0044 - EN

 

In any case a European Union Regulation applies directly, as if it were the law of a member state, and section 212(2) of the Enterprise Act provides that:

 

The laws, regulations or administrative provisions of an EEA State which give effect to a listed Directive provide additional permitted protections if—

 

(a) they provide protection for consumers which is in addition to the minimum protection required by the Directive concerned, and

(b) such additional protection is permitted by that Directive.

 

Enterprise Act 2002 (c. 40)

 

which applies in effect to the Unfair Trading Regulations.

 

 

Section 210 of the Enterprise Act also insists that

 

"For the purposes of a domestic infringement it is immaterial whether a person supplying goods or services has a place of business in the United Kingdom",

 

a domestic infringement being a matter covered by UK law but not by the EU Consumer Protection Legislation.

 

What more could you want?

[honeybee13]

Ooh, technical stuff perplexity. I'll look at it with a glass of wine in my hand, I think.

[perplexity]

It is as well to be prepared because it is not unknown for a Trading Standards Officer to say that something can't be done when it can.

 

We had a Ryanair flight from Italy cancelled because of fog, and they failed to stick to the rquirements of the Regulations, the purpose of which is above all else to prevent the event of travellers sleeping rough in an airport foyer overnight. That is what happened to some of them, short of the ready money to book into a Hotel.

 

Ryanair eventually refunded our extra hotel and travel cost but I never got around to complaining about the rest of it.

[sillybhoy]

they have now told me that they are a point to point airline and don't offer connecting flights.so although will fully refund me for the changed flight im am stuck having to pay for the first one which i cant use as well as my return flight.

OTHERS BEWARE.

I have spent a total of £450 on flights which are now useless and entitled to a refund of about £60!!!

Thanks ryanair!

[perplexity]

Did Ryanair conform to the terms of the Regulations?

 

Article 5

Cancellation

1. In case of cancellation of a flight, the passengers concerned shall:

(a) be offered assistance by the operating air carrier in accordance with Article 8; and

(b) be offered assistance by the operating air carrier in accordance with Article 9(1)(a) and 9(2), as well as, in event of re-routing when the reasonably expected time of departure of the new flight is at least the day after the departure as it was planned for the cancelled flight, the assistance specified in Article 9(1)(b) and 9(1)©; and

© have the right to compensation by the operating air carrier in accordance with Article 7, unless:

(i) they are informed of the cancellation at least two weeks before the scheduled time of departure; or

(ii) they are informed of the cancellation between two weeks and seven days before the scheduled time of departure and are offered re-routing, allowing them to depart no more than two hours before the scheduled time of departure and to reach their final destination less than four hours after the scheduled time of arrival; or

(iii) they are informed of the cancellation less than seven days before the scheduled time of departure and are offered re-routing, allowing them to depart no more than one hour before the scheduled time of departure and to reach their final destination less than two hours after the scheduled time of arrival.

Article 8

Right to reimbursement or re-routing

1. Where reference is made to this Article, passengers shall be offered the choice between:

(a) - reimbursement within seven days, by the means provided for in Article 7(3), of the full cost of the ticket at the price at which it was bought, for the part or parts of the journey not made, and for the part or parts already made if the flight is no longer serving any purpose in relation to the passenger's original travel plan, together with, when relevant,

- a return flight to the first point of departure, at the earliest opportunity;

(b) re-routing, under comparable transport conditions, to their final destination at the earliest opportunity; or

© re-routing, under comparable transport conditions, to their final destination at a later date at the passenger's convenience, subject to availability of seats.

Article 8 refers to the "passenger's original travel plan", so I would not put up with Ryanair's "point to point" nonsense.

 

EUR-Lex - 32004R0261 - EN

[sillybhoy]

thanks for the reply.I think the problem is that the flight wasn't in fact cancelled.although it is now 6 hours earlier it has the same flight number.

[perplexity]

This is all so alarming, so thanks for alerting us to it.

 

Is the possibility covered by the small print, the terms and conditions of Ryanair, that the departure time of a flight may be changed by ... how much exactly?

 

If it allows for a change of several hours, I think it a dubious term, and if there is no such provision the alteration is what I would call a cancellation. If you sued Ryanair I doubt that a judge would stand for it as anything other than a cancellation if it exceeds the two hours specified by Article 5 whereby the re-routing, has to allow the traveller to depart "no more than two hours before the scheduled time of departure".

 

On the other hand, if you failed to leave as much as 2 hours to spare, to connect your flights, that would be seen as reckless. UK Airlines advise travellers to check in well before the departure time.

[sillybhoy]

thanks again and all credit to the lovely guy i spoke to at ryanair today who rebooked me on a direct flight foc although this was far more expensive!

just spoke to the right person today maybe.

no questions asked a no need to get stroppy!

thanks ryanair!!!

and perplexity!

[honeybee13]

Well done, sillybhoy and perplexity, that's a real result! It's good that you didn't need to shout at anyone, I'm pleased for you. May be back in touch if we have problems this year. My best, HB

[perplexity]

There you go!

 

With all said and done Ryanair's cheap flights are a cheap way to advertise, relying on word of mouth etcetera to put the idea about that their deals are the best.

 

It is thus in their interest as much as ours that their reputation as the World leaders in doing whatver it takes to cut the cost is not overdone, with regard to whatever it takes.

 

We survived our experience at Treviso Airport intact, because I persuaded the wife to proceed to a Hotel, confident that Rayanair would eventually have to pay for that. She was going to rough it for the night in the foyer, which would not have been fun!

[scaniaman]

You need to report this to the Civil Aviation Authority