Flight Compensation

I have an interesting conundrum for my legal eagle friends here.

Yesterday, 2^nd June, a friend was booked on a flight from London to Alicante. When she arrived at the check-in in the morning she was informed that the flight had been cancelled due to the French Air Traffic Control industrial action. Eventually the airline offered a hotel and rebooked her on a flight to Valencia the next day. If she had 'insisted' on her original route the earliest she could have flown was about Wednesday of next week. So far everything seems 'acceptable' but not very pleasant or convenient.

The truth is that on Wednesday evening the French called off the strike action and it now emerges that the reason for all the flight cancellations was a precaution by the airlines.

My question is, is she entitled to claim the compensation from the airline for her flight being late under the E.U. 261 regulations flight compensation scheme? By the way the airline sent her an e-mail at about 19:00 Thursday apologising for the cancellation etc. and that they will pick up the bill for reasonable expenses (hotel) but that as they were not responsible for the delay no EU 261 comp.

Thanks in advance for your thoughts

The best you can hope for is that you paid for the flight with a credit card otherwise you have got one big fight on you hands, I had a flight cancelled do to the French two years ago I asked the booking agency for my money back and they refused so I had to make a claim from the credit card company I promptly got a claim from the booking agency claiming it was not their fault so pay up or you will be taken to court I promptly told them to go and love themselves haven't heard anything since.

Wintalker, thanks for your response. However,as far as I understand the EU 216 regs. if a flight is delayed or cancelled and it is the 'responsibility' of the airline then they should pay up. My contention is that on the day there was no French ATC strike. The airlines had decided Wednesday evening to cancel Thursdays flights. If the strike had gone ahead then the actions taken were correct and no compensation should be due.

The action taken by the airline so far has been to pay for a hotel, pay for taxis to and from hotel, fly her next day for 'free' and possibily public transport from Valencia to Alicante. These amounts are more than the cost of the flight and she has 'got home'. However she will be 24 hours late.

One thing I do know as well if it helps anyone, when you hear of any cancellations perhaps affecting your flights make sure you turn up as if you were going, had a friend who didn't turn up because he was advised that the flights could be cancelled, hell of a job getting anything done about it, Airports comments were,  if you wern't here how do you know if we did fly.

The fact that the airline provided you with hotel taxi's etc and an alternative flight would probably suffice for any claims and compensation etc

Had the airline not done this then you may have a claim

An interesting case.  If the facts are as stated I would speculate that a compensation claim would be turned down.  On the face of it they behaved reasonably if they truly cancelled the flights based on the probability of the strike the next day.

But possibly some more ferreting is needed.  Airlines seem to occasionally blame "strikes" for cancellations whereas in reality they need to do so for operational reasons eg lack of pilots which EasyJet did a few years ago when they had a row with their pilots.

If they cancelled all flights that would be effective their reason is probably justified - if they cancelled just a few there might be some other reason.

Not sure if I'm allowed to mention other sites, but that nice man called Mr Lewis who likes to save you money has a section dedicated to this. Read before you post though, the folks who run that bit don't suffer fools gladly.