Rights when flights cancelled

[Loopylou1975]

I’m just after info to see where we stand. We arrived at Gatwick this morning with two very excited kids only to find out our flight had been cancelled. They’d actually rebooked us on to a flight yesterday but we knew nothing about it! We’ve been booked on a new flight in the morning at 5.30am but have had to book a very expensive hotel in Gatwick for the night.
I then checked and saw that next weeks flight has also been cancelled and we’ve been moved onto one a day later. There are no other flights for the day we were due to leave Italy so I’ve had to book another hotel for next Sunday night as I can’t extend our original accommodation booking. Currently £700 out of pocket on last minute hotels so just wondering where we might stand on compensation / insurance for missed flight for any of it? Any thoughts appreciated and please be kind, it’s been quite a day! Thanks :)

Had this happen to us very recently.

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/travel/flight-delays/ is helpful but basically you're entitled to compensation (amount depends on distance. when you were notified of cancellation and time between original and actual flight). You're also entitled to have reasonable expenses paid for, so that would include hotels, meals, extra transport costs, etc. You have to fill in a claim form. (MSE suggests using Resolver, we did it direct on airline's website.)

For us, it was at start of a long holiday outside Europe and we were notified before we left for airport, so on balance the compensation was actually worth the delay, but I wouldn't have felt the same if with young children, shorter flight (so less compensation) or had already arrived at airport. Hope you get to enjoy your holiday once you're there.

I didn’t find out about the cancellation until we were in bag drop today. I had no emails about either of the changed flights although they say I should have done. Last email in my inbox was from easyJet in May telling me about a change to the type of aircraft (but still for the original flight). We printed out our boarding passes a couple of weeks ago so hadn’t logged back in to the easyJet site again.

@AliMonkey I don’t know where we stand though as we just didn’t receive the email. Sort of our word against theirs (we wouldn’t have turned up at the airport if we knew it was changed to yesterday though!) I did phone easyJet and he told me we were entitled to nothing! Not very helpful!

@Weflewinstyle i don’t know as apparently it was yesterday.

They should pay for the alternative flights and on costs like extra hotels or transport to a different airport. Check the terms and conditions. If not try your insurer. Dh had emails from ej a couple of days in advance of each flight last week, offering extras like luggage, might yours have gone into spam?

Did you check your spam folder?
Also, don't you have to check in online before your flight and kught have seen the change then?

You can often check in on line up to a month before. Many people do it when the check in window first opens to have more chance with suitable seats. You can, at that point, download your boarding passes and add them to your digital wallet, etc.

If the change hadn't happened at that point the op may well not have logged back in since.

However, emails should have normally been sent.

It doesn't sound like your flight was canceled, sounds like it was changed. Ie airline changed flight dates and times. This is why it's always recommended to re confirm flights a few days before you leave by checking flight times online. Airlines can and do change their schedules all the time. I think this is what happened as flights home changed too.

If you're at the airport and your flight is delayed or canceled for operational reasons etc then you're entitled to compensation.

You need to be clear which one happened here.

I think what the poster means, is if other people hadn't got the email, surely there would be a load of you arriving at the airport to be told the same thing?

Am I understanding right that they cancelled your flight and booked you on one a day earlier? I had no idea they could change you to an earlier flight, what if you're not able to head away sooner?

Thanks all, this is why I said be kind. In hindsight I’d login a billion times before now! But we didn’t, we checked in and printed boarding passes when the flight check opened on 30th June. I’ve been working 14 hour days to get away, didn’t occur to me to log in again. They must have cancelled the flight a week or 2 ago but never got the email. I’m on email all day long for work. They have also cancelled the return flight next week and booked us on a day later. I never got that email either.

Did they cancel the flight, or just change the departure date / time? If the flight you were due to travel on is no longer departing at that time it's not a cancellation I'm afraid, it's a change.
They may or may not have emailed you to notify you of the changes, basically the airline covers themselves by saying you must always check the times before your departure.
Sorry, I know it's an awful start. If it helps, airline is actually being pretty good to you by rebooking you, as technically you failed to show for a flight yesterday.
Hope you have a good rest of holiday.

You can claim compensation for delays for more than (I think) three hours under the CAA. We got about £900 back after our flight was delayed overnight last year.

@Ihavekids thanks. I think they cancelled the Sunday flights, there and back. Yes the guy who booked us on tomorrows flight was lovely. My son was in hysterics today. I should add we went on the same holiday 4 years ago and that flight got cancelled 5 mins from the airport by text. My kids have been waiting 4 years (and a very traumatic 4 years with the death of close family members) to come back so unbelievable bad luck! I appreciate now you should always double check, triple check but I also think an airline should make sure you’ve seen correspondence. The accommodation we have booked costs £2k so changes of flights jeopardise that. Had we gone yesterday we’d have had no where to stay. And we have next weeks flight now a day later. I’ve had to book a £300 hotel for that, book a £100 taxi as we can’t get the bus at 6.30am and miss a days work for me and my partner next week now. Surely that is covered, today aside?

They changed your flight. They didn't cancel it. I suspect that is the problem you will face as you won't be able to demonstrate they failed to inform you and they will argue that it's your responsibility to check your flight status in good time 48 hours before especially given there's a known problem with Gatwick ATM.

I strongly suspect you'll struggle to get compensation as a result as the due diligence ultimately is your responsibility not theirs.

The first thing is to make a complaint in writing, request a claim form and ask for details of when and how ej claim to have informed you of the changes. If necessary make a dsar to get the information. Hopefully you can enjoy your rescheduled holiday in the meantime but do keep copies of receipts for additional costs. Did you pay by credit card as this may be a back up claim.

Based on www.easyjet.com/en/help/boarding-and-flying/delays-and-cancellations you should get your overnight hotel cost next week back.

Have a look at EU261 (comes up on google) if your flight was actually cancelled rather than changed - compensation per passenger, per distance.

My flight from Italy was cancelled recently but while we were at the airport. So far, we have got back €250 per person compensation. Which is a legal requirement. We are also apparently entitled to welfare compensation for things like food/taxi/hotel for which we had to send receipts. We haven't received this yet though.

As for the cost of our original flight and our rebooked flight (which we paid for), we are still waiting to here about them.

Some useful info re flight changes in case you haven't checked this already:

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/travel/flight-changes/

You can check easily if it's a cancellation and re-booking or just a time change - does it have the same flight number? I bet it doesn't though if you were offered a full day earlier flight. Easyjet needs to show they tried to contact you.
Yes you should have been offered accommodation and transport cost. Yes EasyJet will fight you all the way. You should also get compensation as you got to your destination more than 3h later, but I bet they will claim it's extraordinary circumstances (weather, air traffic control etc).