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Taking Ryanair to small claims court ***Success***


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Remember that solicitors use a lot of smoke & mirrors.  40 pages is more than 4 pages and is no doubt meant to impress a judge and scare you, but I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of these pages are cut & paste that they use in all cases.  They simply try it on (thus the £350).  Plus being pernickety about your partner, when in reality judges give a lot of leeway to LiP.

 

In my early 20s I took someone to court and turned up, bricking myself.  The only party arrived, complete with solicitor.  As soon as we were in front of the judge the pompous solicitor brought up that I hadn't signed something properly under court procedure.  The judge simply asked me to sign whatever it was.  And about half an hour later I won the case. 

 

Up to you if you want to continue.

 

If it will help your case I'm quite willing to write up a little summary of what RyanAir did when I was in a similar situation, with my name & flight number, and send you it. 

 

 

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Thanks FTMDave, I would like to see what you did.

 

Well another update.  After supplying receipts to this solicitor, surprise surprise, their clients Ryanair UK who claim not to have liability but submitted a 40 page defence have come back with same answer.  Basically because I accepted a refund this absolves them of any blame.  Their literature seems to suggest that I got a refund during the delay but I did not apply for it UNTIL I got back home.

 

Actually, looking back through their material, it is all weather related with facts, figures etc and goes a long way explaining how Ryanair laid on a reserve plane and changed their poor, poor tight schedule to try and facilitate their passengers.  My heart bleeds!  They are claiming the weather as extraordinary circumstances and quoting case law were it has been ruled that safety overides everything else.  I am not disputing their was fog but other flights took off on the day and fog at Krakow is a common occurance so hardly "extraordinary".  The basis of my claim is for reimbursemnt of expenses incurred by their failure to provide transport to the other airport as arranged.

Thankfully, also, they supplied flight data for the plane which shows that the passenger total for the flight was 10!  Pretty conclusive evidence that they failed to bus over 100 odd people to Katowice airport from Krakow.

 

Upon further review of the clause in which they claim costs, this is under any party being "unreasonable".  Their grounds for me being unreasonable are that I did not accept their answer and go away and had the audacity to (a) issue proceedings and (b)not withdraw them.

 

I have asked the court to amend the respondent details so will see how that pans out.

 

 

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  • 1 month later...

I've heard horror stories before of Ryanair not paying up and forcing customers to travel to Ireland to go to court, so good luck with that.

 

I get that you showed up at the airport on time for your flight, waited for 3 hours, then got rebooked on a flight 12 hrs later from a different airport. But I don't really understand what happened with the bus. 

 

Did they organise a coach which you ended up missing, or did they expect you to take public transport. Was that ever explained to you clearly? How did they tell you about the new flight/new airport? And with enough advance?

 

I'm sorry this is going to sound very harsh: in the case you knew about your flight 9 hours in advance, from an airport that's 1 hour away, how come you were not there in time?

 

All I know is that airlines are contracted to take you from A to B. If you had taken the flight from the other airport you would have been entitled to claim back for transportation (assuming Ryanair didn't provide it), reasonable food and drink expense, and hotel stay (within certain spend limits). You would probably have had to sue Ryanair for that.

But since you didn't take the flight I have no idea what you are actually entitled to claim. If you have the confidence and the evidence that you're in the right, please go for it and make them pay for their arrogance, and best of luck!

 

(P.S: and this is why I travel with legacy airlines when I can)

 

 

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Quote

As I've stated, we were told that flight had been moved and to await transport by coach.

This never happened as proven by the fact that the flight had only 10 passengers on board when it finally took off.  I think thats pretty conclusive proof that over 100 passengers were failed by Ryanair.

I get your point about having to travel to Ireland to "sue" and fully expect them to use this excuse, but I believe that as an EU citizen still that I am entitled to use my local court jurisdiction.

 

 

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  • 1 month later...

Update time....

 

Return date was 9th of June, waited 10 days and applied for default decree which was duly issued on 19th June.  

 

Fully expect Ryanair to either ignore it or appeal tbh so will have to go down the enforcement route which I expect to cost around £300!!!

Will give them until end of July.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Well surprise surprise!

about a week after my default decree was issued, Ryanair have lodged a notice of dispute and my decree has been set aside?

i have asked the court if this is fair and allowed and I still have not received a copy of the dispute itself?

I am assuming that the small claims court is very lenient about missing deadlines and would be very interested in the dates involved on the paperwork?

 

Sorry ericsbrother I should have answered your question.

My claim is for around £1100 

 

 

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  • 3 months later...

Do you have any update on this, @garygumps?

I'm facing exactly the same situation.

I just received the letter claiming that Ryanair UK Ltd is not the right company to sue and that I should go for Ryanair DAC Ltd instead and I am not sure how to proceed.

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please create your own topic by hitting create in the top red banner

 

dx

 

please don't hit Quote...just type we know what we said earlier..

DCA's view debtors as suckers, marks and mugs

NO DCA has ANY legal powers whatsoever on ANY debt no matter what it's Type

and they

are NOT and can NEVER  be BAILIFFS. even if a debt has been to court..

If everyone stopped blindly paying DCA's Tomorrow, their industry would collapse overnight... 

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11 hours ago, mouis said:

Do you have any update on this, @garygumps?

I'm facing exactly the same situation.

I just received the letter claiming that Ryanair UK Ltd is not the right company to sue and that I should go for Ryanair DAC Ltd instead and I am not sure how to proceed.

 

I did warn about this in post 18: the way that Ryanair structure their company means you have to sue them using the European Small Claims procedure.  Which is more complicated, unfortunately, but not impossible.  Of course the ESCP may cease to apply soon, so I'd get a wriggle on!

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Hi

I suppose it would be time for an update.

To cut a long story short the case is in COVID hell!!  Lol


What happened was that the court “forgot” about the original Notice of Dispute before issuing my decree.

Obviously when Ryanair received the decree they fired it off to Oracle Solicitors who then cried to the court about their Notice of Dispute and so the court then set aside the decree and the case has been transferred to my local court for a hearing.

 

Since then I have been asking the court if I can “transfer” my case to European Small Claims Proceedure (ESCP) as this is mainly paper based and doesn’t require a hearing thereby negating any COVID implications?  

If I try to initiate a claim on ESCP website the UK is greyed out due to Brexit.  

So, it seems that new claims are not possible.

 

However, I have confirmed that if I get a decree in my favour, it CAN be enforced in Republic of Ireland for a small fee.

 

I have jumped through every hoop that Ryanair have put in place and am just waiting on the court to get back to me but everything is SO slow at the minute due to Covid.

 

I still think I have a good case as all of Ryanair’s defence is based on bad weather which I can completely bypass as my complaint is that transport was not provided as promised and I have flight passenger data and other passenger witness statements to back me up!

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On 11/10/2020 at 15:06, garygumps said:

Hi

I suppose it would be time for an update.

To cut a long story short the case is in COVID hell!!  Lol


What happened was that the court “forgot” about the original Notice of Dispute before issuing my decree.

Obviously when Ryanair received the decree they fired it off to Oracle Solicitors who then cried to the court about their Notice of Dispute and so the court then set aside the decree and the case has been transferred to my local court for a hearing.

 

Since then I have been asking the court if I can “transfer” my case to European Small Claims Proceedure (ESCP) as this is mainly paper based and doesn’t require a hearing thereby negating any COVID implications?  

If I try to initiate a claim on ESCP website the UK is greyed out due to Brexit.  

So, it seems that new claims are not possible.

 

However, I have confirmed that if I get a decree in my favour, it CAN be enforced in Republic of Ireland for a small fee.

 

I have jumped through every hoop that Ryanair have put in place and am just waiting on the court to get back to me but everything is SO slow at the minute due to Covid.

 

I still think I have a good case as all of Ryanair’s defence is based on bad weather which I can completely bypass as my complaint is that transport was not provided as promised and I have flight passenger data and other passenger witness statements to back me up!

 

Thank you for the update @garygumps. I also think that you have a good case, so go for it!

 

Did you finally change the defendant to Ryanair DAC, as Oracle solicitors suggested, or was the decree issued for Ryanair UK Ltd? You mentioned in your previous post that you contacted the court to see if this was possible but did not confirm if you finally did it

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Oh yes the court reissued papers to Ryanair DAC. Just had to wait for any reply which of course did not happen as Oracle Solicitors, who claim not to represent Ryanair DAC, but obviously do as they lodged a Dispute “on behalf” of them way back at the start which the court has still accepted?

 

 

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  • 1 month later...

I am following this with interest.  I have flown with Ryanair weekly commuting for many years - hundreds of flights.  That is a lot of trips, delays, dramas and sagas.  I have seen Ryanair operate mostly without incident but as soon as anything goes awry they are disgraceful.

 

I have though taken them to small claims court in the UK many times and won every time.  The £350 fee they threaten is a cut and paste as mentioned in an earlier post.   It appears in every defence and is the final scare tactic before the real negotiations actually begin and you will start getting emails from their solicitors.  If you are right then stick to your guns as the law is clear.  On every occasion, Ryanair have settled with me before court as they could never afford to lose (even though Small Claims does not count for legal precedent) as the internet would light up with how to do it.

 

A few tips:

 

1. For "knock on effect" look up Eglitis et Ranieks as a legal precedent.

2. If they ever offer any kind of settlement it means they know they are on to a loser so only offer to accept the full amount for settlement.

3. Take screen grabs of any conversation with their online chat support.  Always valuable as demonstrative of their inabilities and often useful evidence when you start speaking to their solicitors.

4. Read their T&Cs is detail, I travel so regularly that I carry a copy with me at all times for reference in the event of a problem onboard (sad I know).

 

Hit me back if I can be of any further help.

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Hi Scourge of Ryanair,

 

Thanks for your support.

As I said, the case is in limbo at the moment until court services get back to "normal".  I am happy enough with this.  I never really got a satisfactory reply back about the ESCP but because I can enforce any judgement in ROI I am happy to  continue with my current action.

 

I am all prepared for any hearing and feel I have a good case.  I am looking forward to completely sidestepping Ryanairs defence of bad weather etc. and focussing on their failure to provide the transport, as propmised, to the new departure airport.  I have many witness statements from fellow passengers and news reports to back this up and also Ryanairs own flight data showing only 10 passengers made the flight.

Edited by garygumps

 

 

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  • 2 months later...
On 25/11/2020 at 03:51, garygumps said:

Hi Scourge of Ryanair,

 

Thanks for your support.

As I said, the case is in limbo at the moment until court services get back to "normal".  I am happy enough with this.  I never really got a satisfactory reply back about the ESCP but because I can enforce any judgement in ROI I am happy to  continue with my current action.

 

I am all prepared for any hearing and feel I have a good case.  I am looking forward to completely sidestepping Ryanairs defence of bad weather etc. and focussing on their failure to provide the transport, as propmised, to the new departure airport.  I have many witness statements from fellow passengers and news reports to back this up and also Ryanairs own flight data showing only 10 passengers made the flight.

 

What ever happened to this? any updates? x

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No update I'm afraid.

All SmallCLaim actions are on hold in the courts here in NI.

 

Who knows when things might get back to some sort of normal?   I'm reckoning at least back end of this year at the earliest.

 

As I said I've done all I can and just waiting to hear from the court about a hearing date.

 

Gary

 

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hi Scourge,

No, no mentions of birdstrikes.  Their whole defence was blamed on fog which caused "uncontrollable" delays and cancellations and rearrangment of flights, spare aircraft ect.    All well and good but they failed spectacularly in transporting passengers as promised to these new arrangements.

 

Yes, the solicitors quoted £350 as cost of them preparing this defence.

 

 

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Did you submit any kind of response to their defence submission?

 

You are perfectly within your rights to do so and can use it to elaborate on the facts and present the legal arguments behind your case.  Just write it in the same template as their defence and send it to them and the court.  Ensure that they acknowledge receipt as it will become evidence.

 

It also gives you the chance to unpick their defence, apply for parts to be discounted where you can argue for such a move and make the case why their request for costs should be dismissed.

 

Look up the legal definition of unreasonable conduct as that is the only reason for permitting defence costs in the small claims process.  Then state why you have been reasonable and why they are unreasonable.  This usually is because they never reply to emails, never listen, reject all requests through their own processes and leave you this process as the only available course of action.

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Hi Scourge,

 

Actually I decided to look over their defence again as it had been a long time and there is a few sections about birdstrikes!

 

To be honest I never replied to their defence asI was under the impression that I would be doing this at court at the hearing when I could argue that their defence was missing the point entirely.

 

If you like, I could send you a copy of their defence for you to look through?  Perhaps then you could see if it is a generic template that you may have comeacross before?

 

 

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48 minutes ago, garygumps said:

Thanks.

I wil PM you the file😀

it would be more helpful to everyone if you could post it here on the open forum please.

This is a shared resource and that's why we have a successful community.

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