Heading on holiday this summer? If you’ve booked a flight, you might be feeling some airport anxiety. Fear of flying is one thing, but fear of not flying can also loom large.
Once upon a time, it was only striking air traffic controllers or baggage handlers who could nix your holiday plans. More recently, climate events such as floods, wildfires and extreme turbulence, anti-tourism protests and technical glitches are adding to the mix.
Wildfires in Greece, flash floods in Valencia, an electrical substation fire at Heathrow and a mass power outage in Spain and Portugal have all stopped flights in the past 12 months. But if your plane is delayed or doesn’t fly, what are your rights, and can you get a refund or compensation?
A whopping €1,197,230 in compensation was paid to passengers on the back of 1,726 complaints about airlines upheld by the Irish Aviation Authority (IAA) last year. Passengers were also paid more than €360,000 in refunds as a result of complaints to the body.
If your flight is cancelled, or delayed by more than two hours, or you are denied boarding or are downgraded, you may have grounds for complaint. The majority of successful complaints last year related to cancellations and delays.
Aer Lingus accounted for 33 per cent of all complaints received by the IAA in the 12 months and Ryanair for 31 per cent. The IAA received 23 complaints from people with reduced mobility.
Flight delays
A delayed or cancelled flight is a total pain. When you’re grounded and waiting to fly, for hours or even days, food, accommodation and transport costs can quickly rack up.
If your flight is delayed, your entitlement to help from the airline is linked to the distance to your destination and the length of the delay.
For short-haul flights – less than 1,500km – where the delay is under two hours, you’ll generally just have to suck it up. So, if your Dublin to London, Brussels, Milan or Paris flight is delayed for two hours or less, your best remedy is a good book.
For destinations in Europe of more than 1,500km, and all other flights up to 3,500km, the delay must be greater than three hours before the law demands “care and assistance” from your airline. Think flights from Ireland to Malta or Rome.
“Care and assistance” means food and refreshments, hotel accommodation and transport to and from there if an overnight stay becomes necessary. You’re entitled to two telephone calls or emails too.
If the airline doesn’t provide you with anything and you need to make your own arrangements, keep receipts to claim the money back from them, says the IAA.
For long-haul destinations more than 3,500km away, such as North America or Cape Town, the delay must be greater than four hours before a legal entitlement to assistance kicks in
You’re not expected to know how far away your destination is by the way. The Great Circle website calculator is the recommended way to work it out.
A delay of five hours or more to any destination is pretty scuppering. If you decide not to travel, you are entitled to a full refund, says the IAA.
Compensation
If your plane flies but you get to your destination three hours late, you are entitled to compensation.
The amount you can claim depends on whether the flight is short, medium or long haul and compensation is paid at €250, €400 to €600 per person accordingly. Compensation for long-haul flights may be halved if you arrive less than four hours late.
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If your flight is delayed by “extraordinary circumstances” you can’t claim compensation. “Extraordinary circumstances” include air traffic control decisions, political instability, bad weather or security risks.
For the majority of failed passenger complaints to IAA last year, the airline proved there had been extraordinary circumstances
Your airline has to prove their delay was specifically linked to the extraordinary circumstance. Aircraft technical issues, wonky stairs or striking staff are not extraordinary circumstances.
Where there are extraordinary circumstances, no compensation is due beyond care, assistance and rerouting.
If you can’t get to the airport due to “extraordinary circumstances”, the airline does not have any obligations to you if they are not the cause of the disruption.
Flight cancellations
Flights get cancelled and, if yours is one of them, the airline must offer you a choice of rerouting as soon as possible; rerouting at a later date at your convenience; or a refund.
If you choose to be rerouted as soon as possible, the airline must provide you with meals and refreshments corresponding to the waiting time, and hotel accommodation if an overnight stay is required.
If you get more than two weeks’ notice of the cancellation, you’re not entitled to compensation from the airline.
If you got between seven days and two weeks’ notice and you opted for rerouting that departed no more than two hours before your original departure time and arrived no more than four hours after the original arrival time, you are not entitled to compensation either.
However, if your rerouting was outside of those time frames, you are entitled to compensation unless the airline can prove the cancellation was caused by extraordinary circumstances.
If you got less than seven days notice of the cancellation and your rerouting departed no more than one hour before the original departure time and arrived no more than two hours after the original arrival time, you are not entitled to airline compensation.
But again, if your rerouting was outside of those time frames, you are entitled to compensation unless the air carrier can prove the cancellation was caused by extraordinary circumstances.
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Denied boarding
If you’ve confirmed your flight, you’ve got your passport, you’re in good time and pose no health or security risk, you could still be “involuntarily” denied boarding. This can happen if the flight is overbooked, for example.
If this happens, the airline must offer you a choice of rerouting as soon as possible, rerouting at a later date at your convenience or a full refund.
If you choose rerouting, they must offer you care and assistance while waiting for your alternative flight.
Passengers involuntarily denied boarding must also be compensated. The amount depends on the journey distance and the time frame within which you were rerouted.
How to complain
If you have an issue, raise it with the airline first, says the IAA, which provides useful complaint templates on its website for doing so.
If you have no joy, contact the relevant enforcement body in the EU member state where the flight was due to depart. The IAA website provides all their contact details.
So, if your Dublin-Malaga flight was disrupted, you would contact the IAA. They are the enforcement body for flights out of Irish airports, or a flight into an airport here from a country outside the EU but which is operated by an EU-licensed carrier.
If it was the return Malaga-Dublin flight that was disrupted, you would contact the Spanish enforcement body.
Likewise, if your Aer Lingus flight from New York to Dublin is delayed, contact the IAA, but if the flight was with American Airlines, contact the US department of transportation as American Airlines is not licensed in Europe.
You can contact us at OnTheMoney@irishtimes.com with personal finance questions you would like to see us address. If you missed last week’s newsletter, you can read it here.
