Flight home cancelled due to snow - Airline obligations?

Hi,

Does anyone know if an airline (Aer Lingus) has any obligation to their customer if their flight home is cancelled while abroad due to the snow in Dublin? In this case the people involved booked the next flight but it was 2 days after the original departure date. They had to pay for accommodation and meals for those two days. Will Aer Lingus refund some/all of this? Is it considered similar to the Ash cloud business? Thanks.

Booking replacement flights on your own is never a good idea. There might be a way to recover the costs - but the airline will fight it, arguing you should have left it to them. And they are right. The relevant rules are laid out in EU Regulation 261/2004. If a flight is canceled, the airline has to find a replacement, pay for food, drink and accommodation until then - but they arrange this, flying you on their own planes and booking with their preferred hotel partners. If you just do your own thing, you are likely to be incurring much higher costs and the airline will refuse to pay those.

Did the airline not offer accomodation plus alternative arrangements of travel over the two days ?

undo said:

Booking replacement flights on your own is never a good idea.

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can you elaborate a bit more on this please ?

They booked the flight on their own on the advice of their airline. They went on to the Aer Lingus website and contacted Aer Lingus by phone and were advised that they could either rebook their flight or get a refund. They opted to rebook the next available flight to get home. The airline never gave a option of 'leaving it to them'. When they went to get their replacement flight 2 days later that was also cancelled due to the air traffic controllers strike in Spain but in this case they had checked in so Aer Lingus did organise hotel, meals and another flight. But my understanding is they have to do this when passengers are checked-in. So my question is should they now submit receipts of meals and hotel for the two days they had to stay while the original flight was cancelled? Thanks.

PyritePete said:

can you elaborate a bit more on this please ?

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It is not a good idea because, as I described in my initial post, it leads to situation like the OP's. You end up forking out cash and then having to chase the airline. If the airline says that your booking of alternative flights caused unnecessary expenses, they have a very strong case and may well be able to weasel out of paying for some or all of your alternative travel arrangements.

What pays off is to know your rights. The airline must find alternative travel arrangements for you (unless you decide to cancel for a full refund, the choice is yours), must provide you with food, drink and accommodation if the delay is long enough. This is a right guaranteed to passengers of all flights to/from the EU. There is no way to opt out of this. If there was, I am sure Ryanair would have found it by now .

@ OP: Whether you checked in for the flight or not has nothing to do with this. Whether check-in is done weeks ahead online or on the day at the airport, you have a ticket and you can expect to travel. If the flight falls through, the airline has to sort you out. It sounds to me like either some kind of misunderstanding or simply wrong information by the airline. They should most definitely take it up with Aer Lingus. It is just that if things get tough, it will be difficult to prove what the airline advised... Best of luck though and for the future, pick up a copy of the leaflet on your rights under Regulation 261/2004, available free of charge at all airports.

Thanks for this. I'll advise them to put in for recompense and see what happens.

Unfortunately, the airline is not obliged to pay diddly-squat in the event of extenuating circumstances and some airlines including Ryanair (not sure about Aer Lingus) will call snow extenuating circumstances. If this is the case they are only obliged to offer you a refund or put you on a alternative flight.

For example, I was flying from Liverpool to Derry in February 2009 on the day that the whole of England was engulfed in snow and the flight was cancelled; the next flight I was offered was four days later or I could fly to Knock the following morning (which was a lot of good) or a flight to Dublin two days later. Ended up getting a refund and taking the ferry; I know another guy on the same flight and he booked the flight to Dublin two days later and tried to get re-imbursed for hotel/food expenses and the cost of the bus from Dublin to Derry and he was told by the airline (Ryanair) that they didn't have to pay out due to "extenuating circumstances",

How did they inform you of the cancellation. If they have informed you by e-mail or text, that means they are issuing the instructions to you and offerring you the alternatives. Therefore that replacement flight is at nil cost to you plus reasonable out of pocket (vouched) expenses.

I have been through this process twice this year

Red Chariot. It appears your problem happened in 2009 and it took the ash cloud of 2010 to whip them all into shape. They tried to avoid payment but were forced to do so and abide by the regulations

Undo is right .
Regardless of volcanoes, weather (or almost anything else that is not the fault of an airline) the fact is the airline must feed and accommodate you until it provides an alternative flight. Or give a refund.

This ridiculous law means that even when an airport is snowed in for days on end the airline, to whom the passenger may have only given ten euros for the flight, must spend a fortune feeding and accommodating the passenger.

That same passenger will of course expect the airline to always offer really cheap deals, and will wonder why airlines go bust.

Compensation however is a differernt matter. No compensation is given for problems arising out of force majeure delays, though doubtless some EU consumer rights champion will soon insist that the airline hands out a bag of money to each passenger stranded thru no fault of the airline.

For more details see aviationreg.ie -commission for Aviation Regulation,

Hi Black Sheep...they were informed of the cancellation by text. Their replacement flight didn't cost them anything obviously. They kept receipts for their hotel accommodation and one meal (they didn't keep receipts for the other meals). The accommodation they stayed in for the two extra days was very reasonable accommodatin. They weren't taking the P.
Oldnick...I don't quite understand your point. They are not looking for compensation per se...just for some recognition of the extra costs they had to incur as a result of their flight being cancelled. The original flights they purchased weren't cheap flights and they didn't go and book into an expensive hotel for the 2 nights that they were stranded. Do you think under current regulations they would have a claim to make (whether you agree with it or not). Thanks.

@lou2 The compensation Oldnick was referring to is another part of EU Regulation 261/2004. He was just clarifying that this part does not apply. You would get actual cash compensation if say the flight was canceled because the airline tried to save on aircraft maintenance and engineers declared it not fit to fly because of poor state of repair. As Oldnick said, you can skip that part of the regulation as in your case, it clearly does not apply.

The airline is still liable to arrange alternative transport and cover food and board until then. Sure it is good that they did not book a five star hotel. But since it was not all arranged through the airline, there might still be a way out for Aer Lingus. No harm in trying to get reimbursed though of course.

Travelled to Munich on 29 Nov for three nights which was extended by another two because Dub airport closed. We knew nothing about flight being cancelled until we presented at Munich airport for check-in on a Thursday. They re booked our flight for the Sat night and put us up in a gorgeous hotel fore the two nights with breakfast and dinner each day. I think it's always better to go to the airport, tht way they have to re book the flight and provide accommodation for you.

@Undo - cheers for clearing this up.