Flight compensation to be reduced (by a lot).

[Haggisman]

Perhaps you need to buy better insurance?

Or perhaps it's perfectly reasonable to expect to be provided with the service you've paid for, and for me and my family to be compensated if they fail to do so? But by all means please recommend some travel insurance companies who will pay me and my partner's wages for the lost days (at double time of course) if our flight is delayed, along with spending money so we can take the kids to the zoo or a theme park or something instead of having to spend endless hours staring at the 4 walls of our hotel room. I'll be sure to take a look at the extensive list next time we go away.

But if your time is that valuable then you need to book a private jet: back when I worked at Gulfstream's depot in Luton it wasn't actually that expensive compared to a business class ticket if the jet was full. But if your time is that valuable, why are you travelling cheap?

Sure, booking a private jet for a family holiday is completely realistic, and if you aren't on first name terms with the pilot then obviously you're "travelling cheap" . Are you being deliberately obtuse or are you really that out of touch with reality?

 

[Quartz]

Sure, booking a private jet for a family holiday is completely realistic, and if you aren't on first name terms with the pilot then obviously you're "travelling cheap" . Are you being deliberately obtuse or are you really that out of touch with reality?

No, I'm not being obtuse. I'm stating how it was back then. Hiring a private plane was not much more per person than flying business class, if the plane was full.

 

[chroniclard]

Is there no end to these brexit dividends.

 

[rypt]

Under previous rules you could claim £220 compensation for a 2 hour delay to a flight costing £20, which was highly disproportionate. The proposed new rules base the compensation on the value of the ticket price so that you are compensated proportionately.

All seems quite sensible?

I don't want compensation, I just want a service that I've paid for.

Perhaps the law should be changed that there is no compensation to the traveler, but instead the airline has to find a way to get the passenger to their destination in a timeframe similar to their competitors

 

[Slam62]

Compensation is just adding costs to flights, everyone wants free cash. Don't like it don't book it.

 

[Werewolf]

Compensation is just adding costs to flights, everyone wants free cash. Don't like it don't book it.

Or the airlines could, you know, try a bit harder to avoid delays that are due to their own issues?

One of the problems is that airlines like to cut corners where they can, so if they know that letting a few hundred people down every now and then is going to cost them very little in compensation they'll do it, and do it as often as they can if it means say saving on having to allow more time between flights or having enough flight crew that a short delay means they can't in fact do the last run of the day due to lack of flight hours.

I suspect the number of long delays may well have dropped in the EU after the rules were created, as the equation at the airline over "well it's too expensive to do X to reduce delays" may well have shifted.

Airlines take the **** in so many ways where there isn't a hard law or regulation to stop it.

 

[arknor]

I commuted West London to Newcastle for a while

you didn't have to change trains?
flights to london from newcastle are like £35 or where when I looked.

a train just to nottingham was like £90 and mean't changing 1-3 times

Compensation is just adding costs to flights, everyone wants free cash. Don't like it don't book it.

they could you know... not offer more flights than they have planes for..

with people like easyjet it seems if one thing g oes wrong then it's like a stack of dominos effecting 5+ other flights the same day.

they dont have the same plane running the same route back and fourth, they have the plane going all over the shop covering different routes at different times of the day

 

[Malt_Vinegar]

A long airport delay coming home from holiday with the Mrs many moons ago meant we actually got more in compensation than we paid for the holiday in total, not just the flights.
I dont know how it could ever have been sustainable at that rate, long term. I am surprised it's taken this long.

 

[VincentHanna]

Yeah I've had compensation from flights that has paid for a good chunk of another holiday.

But the delays were ridiculous and preventable. One was our flight being bumped by 24 hours and taking off from a different airport and the other was a 6 hour delay sitting in a Las Vegas departure lounge.

It's supposed to be punitive enough that the carrier's try their utmost to stop it happening.

 

[Slam62]

So do we think delays result from incompetence, greed or trying to run the airline on the cheap?

Or just that things sometimes just don't go to plan?

If you hire a private jet you still occasionally get delays.

If you pay as little as you can you're not going get the best service.

 

[mid_gen]

you didn't have to change trains?
flights to london from newcastle are like £35 or where when I looked.

a train just to nottingham was like £90 and mean't changing 1-3 times

Got the tube to King's Cross, then east coast mainline to Newcastle. Used to be £52 standard, £53 first class each way if you booked enough in advance. Flights were a similar price, Heathrow to Newcastle.

 

[Haggisman]

Compensation is just adding costs to flights, everyone wants free cash. Don't like it don't book it.

It's nothing to do with free cash. It's giving the airline an incentive to actually provide the service they've committed to (or rather removing the incentive not to). I can guarantee you it's someone's job to decide whether in various scenarios it's better financially to cancel/delay a service (and have to pay compensation) or take the financial hit of running it anyway. Lowering the compensation leans that decision further to the side of cancelling/delaying, which is not in the interest of the customer, because while that delayed or cancelled flight is just numbers in a bank account to the flight operator, to the customer it's missing Christmas with their family, or their son's graduation, or sealing the deal with a foreign client, or a ruined family holiday etc.

So do we think delays result from incompetence, greed or trying to run the airline on the cheap?

Or just that things sometimes just don't go to plan?

If you hire a private jet you still occasionally get delays.

If you pay as little as you can you're not going get the best service.

It could be various reasons. It could be anything from adverse weather to staff illness, technical problems or just an accountant who decided that because there are only 10 tickets booked it's cheaper to cancel the flight and pay out compensation to those 10 people than actually run the service.

The compensation scheme already has exclusions for "extraordinary circumstances" which are generally outside the airline's control, such as weather, terrorist attacks etc. For the other issues - these are (in most cases) preventable by the airline, and a decision has been made to not put measures in place. If the airline has decided to leave themselves vulnerable to these issues in a race to the bottom then that's a gamble they have made and in some cases it doesn't pay off.

You seem to be yet another member who seems so out of touch that you're suggesting that booking a private jet is a perfectly feasible consideration for the average family holiday. A few minutes research shows that for the same trip (Heathrow to Zagreb and back for a week in the middle of August for a family of 4), BA: £1,200, Private jet £24,000. That's 20x the price. That is in now way affordable for the vast majority of people.

No one is asking for free cash or anything unreasonable. We just want the service we've paid for, and to be compensated if that's not provided.

 

[Malt_Vinegar]

You seem to be yet another member who seems so out of touch that you're suggesting that booking a private jet is a perfectly feasible consideration for the average family holiday. A few minutes research shows that for the same trip (Heathrow to Zagreb and back for a week in the middle of August for a family of 4), BA: £1,200, Private jet £24,000. That's 20x the price. That is in now way affordable for the vast majority of people.

That's not what he said at all, and frankly, I can't work out why/how you could possibly think that?!

The mention of Private Jets was that even when paying top dollar for flights, delays still happen, pay for a cheap flight and its just more likely/common...

 

[Hagar]

That's not what he said at all, and frankly, I can't work out why/how you could possibly think that?!

The mention of Private Jets was that even when paying top dollar for flights, delays still happen, pay for a cheap flight and its just more likely/common...

And it could be that flights are just too cheap to be a sustainable form of mass transport today (however many saplings are planted). But that is another story.

 

[Haggisman]

That's not what he said at all, and frankly, I can't work out why/how you could possibly think that?!

The mention of Private Jets was that even when paying top dollar for flights, delays still happen, pay for a cheap flight and its just more likely/common...

Fair enough, the other guy above was suggesting that it wasn't much more expensive than a normal flight

The way I see it is, when they decide* to cancel a flight, I'm no longer able to do what I want with my time, someone else is dictating that - in this case the flight operator. My time isn't free, so normally when someone else is dictating what I do with it, I get paid for it - it's called "employment". In this case, the compensation is essentially the flight operator paying for my time, which - if it's done at a reasonable rate - I can deal with that. It may not be my first choice (neither is working 7.5 hours a day), but a necessary trade-off.




* note I say when they decide, either directly because it's not financially viable, or because they've cut corners elsewhere which has allowed circumstances to arise to cause the delay/cancellation. Obviously in circumstances outside of their control it's unfortunate, and we all have to play our part in just sucking that up.

And it could be that flights are just too cheap to be a sustainable form of mass transport today (however many saplings are planted). But that is another story.

Which is fine. Put the prices up. Put them up to the point where they are sustainable and it's feasible to provide the service promised. Maybe even allow passengers to buy an addon "delay/cancellation protection" which provides a similar level of compensation to the current level. (No, this is not the same as travel insurance which is there to cover any unexpected expenses, and does not compensate you for the lost time & inconvenience).

 

[jpaul]

Market could decide here ? with an optional ticket supplement that does give you more significant compensation - like O'Really et al. and the luggage costs,
something less expensive than aforementioned full independant travel insurance.

 

[arknor]

And it could be that flights are just too cheap to be a sustainable form of mass transport today (however many saplings are planted). But that is another story.

yea lets stop mobility of anyone not rich to save the planet whilst the ones ruining it get to have normal freedoms.

we should ban computer sales to the poor to, read books or listen to the wireless

 

[Hagar]

yea lets stop mobility of anyone not rich to save the planet whilst the ones ruining it get to have normal freedoms.

we should ban computer sales to the poor to, read books or listen to the wireless

Reading books and listening to the wireless is a favourite pastime of mine.

 

[Meridian]

Under previous rules you could claim £220 compensation for a 2 hour delay to a flight costing £20, which was highly disproportionate. The proposed new rules base the compensation on the value of the ticket price so that you are compensated proportionately.

All seems quite sensible?

For the airlines, yes. For the passengers, not so much. So do you work for an airline, because otherwise i can't see why you think it's so good?

 

[weringo]

For the airlines, yes. For the passengers, not so much. So do you work for an airline, because otherwise i can't see why you think it's so good?

Regulation for certain industries is important but it needs to be proportionate, which 1100% compensation is not. Your post reads like you assume this is money that was magically passing from airlines to consumers. In reality it was impacting the cost to airlines of operating a flight and thus driving up the ticket price.