Hi,

Flew back to work yesterday, and at the airport was told that my flight was oversold and therefore would have to wait 6 hours for the next one with the same airline, all other flights with other airlines in the meantime were full.

Airline offered me a £9 food and drink voucher for use in the airport, and small amount of compensation for my inconvenience, I have the serial number and information to claim this.

The issue is however, that with work, a colleague of mine can only leave once I arrive, so he ended up missing his flight and had to stay overnight, and then get a new last minute flight in the morning, thus costing me £625 of my own money. I have called air france this morning to explain this issue and they have quickly dismissed all blame explaining that they will pay the agreed standard compensation but any extra expenses are not their responsibility.

Does anybody know where I might stand on this?

The issue is however, that with work, a colleague of mine can only leave once I arrive, so he ended up missing his flight and had to stay overnight, and then get a new last minute flight in the morning, thus costing me £625 of my own money.

From a legal perspective, you’ll probably find that the terms of carriage will have excluded all indirect losses and a good chunk of the direct ones too.

The £625 you had to pay out is an indirect loss and you’ve got little chance of recovering it.

That said, check the wording around statutory and the airline’s own compensation rules, there might be some wording in there to protect passengers which would include some indirect losses…but I highly doubt it.

There are standard EU compensation rules which are published. The airline will probably be sticking to that. After that do you have travel insurance?

In one way work should be covering your expenses though so it should be their problem (unfortunate for them)

But surely you accepted their first offer for inconvenience.
You should have highlited your additional expendeture at the time no?
And if it’s work it’s your employers respisibility to sort it.
Claim your money from them and give them the grief.

who booked your tickets ?

ive been bumped in the past – with similar repercussions (only i dont pay the expenses….)- boils down to they booked the cheapest tickets availible which dont really guarantee a seat.

Why are you paying your colleague’s expenses?

AirFrance? You poor sod!

One must assume it was a flight to some obscure ex-French colony (and therefore probably a current or ex warzone as well), otherwise why on earth would anyone fly with that bunch of [expletive deleted]s?

Will be surprised if your travel insurance helps – indirect losses are nearly always excluded. As above however, why do you you have to pay for your colleagues costs?

When I got bumped by KLM and BA they both gave me £125 cash, and that was a few years back. You have to check the standard airline rules but overbooking its not a carriage disruption issue its a strategic business decision and normal rules of breach of contract *should* apply. Your problem is the efoort of pursuing it.
Why did it cost you £625? To be fair, what if there was travel disruption due to, oh lets say a big storm, then your colleague would have missed his flight. Just because flights are usually dependable doesn’t mean its reasonable to rely upon them.

aP – Member
Why are you paying your colleague’s expenses?

+1

Normally work pay for mine and my colleagues flights and expenses no dramas, but in this case I went home for the weekend as a one off and he came out to cover me, so I paid the flights! It’s so annoying that it happened this time not on the countless times I’ve made the same journey with work paying the bill.

Yes I’ve read about there being set compensation rates in eu law, and it appears that any loss on top of that isn’t covered in the contract, so I’m not optimistic!

Edit: so in answer to why I am paying my colleagues expenses (fair question) it’s because I wanted to be home this weekend so paid his expenses to get him out to work to cover me.

whats already been said +1

I got the standard eu compensation which is 250euro IIRC, but travel insurance pays for any actual costs youre insured against. If youre not insured against them then there’s not going to be any payout.

fair answer too 😀 , just sounded a weird thing to be doing

Ok, cheers all. I’ve had countless easy and punctual journeys in the exact same flight, but the ONE time I do it from my own pocket it costs me!

Fair one with the insurance point.

If they don’t give you any money back destroy £625 worth of plane next time your on a air france flight

If they don’t give you any money back destroy £625 worth of plane next time your on a air france flight

Is a Scare France plane even worth £625?

2 lounge passes would probably get you somewhere….

Customer complaints and go for something you can use in onward travel

Or buy a tweet?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-23943480

@Rogan – sadly based on (all ?) the airlines terms and conditions they are allowed to do this and pay minimum compensation / costs. Your best bet is to try and get a free flight or plenty of air miles in compensation, that’s been generally all I’ve got for such incidents, it’s happened to me a few times over the years including when I’ve been checked in online the day before !

This happened to us once. We arrived cutting it a bit fine with about 6 mins to go before check in closed to be told our seats had been sold. After a bit of a complaining session and about an hour waiting in a queue we were books onto a later flight and give around £250 EACH paid direct onto our debit card…. for a flight we got for free anyway…. We had a lovely time in Rome, I can assure you!

Mrs poddy, hi ye that’s basically the same deal that I was offered, but my expense was a little more than what they are willing to pay. Dissapointing but thanks all, fair points and not necessarily a lot that I can do. They are willing to pay the set £212 compensation, along with a £100 flight voucher, however the voucher is of no use to me as I don’t (in any case other than this) pay my own flights.

Never mind!

i do find it quite annoying in that many airlines on their top tier airmiles cards will guarantee you a seat on any flight – even if its sold out…..hence we get bumped 🙁

Rogan – sadly based on (all ?) the airlines terms and conditions they are allowed to do this and pay minimum compensation / costs. Your best bet is to try and get a free flight or plenty of air miles in compensation, that’s been generally all I’ve got for such incidents, it’s happened to me a few times over the years including when I’ve been checked in online the day before !

Not really saddly, if they don’t exclude consequential damages then their liability would be infinate. If Rogan was the CEO of a multi billion pound organisation about to sign a huge merger deal, but it fell through as he wasn’t there, then Air France would be bankupt for not getting one passenger on a £100 flight. It’s a common term in contracts to limit the liability to the value of the the contract, in this case Air France just had to get Rogan to his destintion or refund him, they could never be liable for consequential losses.

i do find it quite annoying in that many airlines on their top tier airmiles cards will guarantee you a seat on any flight – even if its sold out…..hence we get bumped

+1

I’ve been pushed out of standby a number of times as a result of this.

On one occasion I’d actually got on the flight (after having missed out on the previous flight), sat in my seat, then they came and asked me to get back off because a higher priority passenger had just arrived at the gate. On the upside, that was the last flight that day and I managed to persuade them to put me up in the Hyatt Regency at the terminal rather than having to go into town. I went straight to the bar and made two good friends who taught me all about rodeo and were the reason I nearly missed my flight the next morning after a few too many to drink 🙂

Not really saddly, if they don’t exclude consequential damages then their liability would be infinate.

No, in the absence of an exclusion for indirect losses, the loss would still have needed to have been in the parties’ contemplation in order to be recoverable. The exclusion is just cleaner and more robust than having to argue your way through a load of consequential loss claims. As soon as you’re made aware of the exclusion there is no way to claim for indirect losses, even if they were foreseeable. Also saves passengers trying to bring indirect losses into the knowledge of the parties (i.e. emailing info@ba.com “Just to let you guys know, if I miss this flight i’m just about to book I will miss a job interview that will pay me $1m a year”) 🙂

peterfile – Member

Not really saddly, if they don’t exclude consequential damages then their liability would be infinate.

No, in the absence of an exclusion for indirect losses, the loss would still have needed to have been in the parties’ contemplation in order to be recoverable. The exclusion is just cleaner and more robust than having to argue your way through a load of consequential loss claims. As soon as you’re made aware of the exclusion there is no way to claim for indirect losses, even if they were foreseeable. Also saves passengers trying to bring indirect losses into the knowledge of the parties (i.e. emailing info@ba.com “Just to let you guys know, if I miss this flight i’m just about to book I will miss a job interview that will pay me $1m a year”)

Talking about consequential damage/loss … (slight hijack) …

A private school has just hit my sister with a consequential damage/loss of £25k (loss deposit £14k plus and unpaid deposit £10k plus) + £1k solicitor fees … all because she decided to move her two children to another private school within 30hrs of being there because the school is shite.

Now I need to sort things out for her and her family, all because of the consequential loss/damage that the school claimed that they incurred.

😡

I went straight to the bar and made two good friends who taught me all about rodeo

Unless that’s an inuendo, it’s still quite dissapointing.

Unless that’s an inuendo, it’s still quite dissapointing.

Ha! 😆 They were proper cowboys, in Dallas for some sort of competition. We sat at the bar eating chicken wings and drinking beer. They were both wearing cowboy hats. They were two of the coolest people i’ve met (in the US anyway, which isn’t setting the bar very high). I left with my innocence intact 🙂

Talking about consequential damage/loss … (slight hijack) …

A private school has just hit my sister with a consequential damage/loss of £25k (loss deposit £14k plus and unpaid deposit £10k plus) + £1k solicitor fees … all because she decided to move her two children to another private school within 30hrs of being there because the school is shite.

Now I need to sort things out for her and her family, all because of the consequential loss/damage that the school claimed that they incurred.
Read before signing?

Chewkw
For £25k loss I’m sure your sister will have the common sense to keep them there.
if she wants to recoup the cash she could always fire the gardener and cleaner. I’m sure the butler can stay.

mikewsmith – Member

Read before signing?

Too late … the small print is very small.

iolo – Member

Chewkw
For £25k loss I’m sure your sister will have the common sense to keep them there.
if she wants to recoup the cash she could always fire the gardener and cleaner. I’m sure the butler can stay.

Too late because they just moved from one private school to another and both are shite, it’s a matter of choosing the lesser evil.

Having the money to spend is one thing but trying to fleece someone off because they come from abroad is another. No, no, this is not money earned from being a crony. This is hard saving for kids education. The way I see it, there is just too much hype for education in the UK. They should simply go elsewhere rather than getting fleeced.

The experience has opened my eyes wide … very wide. 😯

Now, I need to find another solicitor to deal with the school … joy of money grabbing ethos.

🙄

Chewkw – totally different scenario but then again if she’s forking out that much for her kids education & can’t work that one out its probably money well spent

A private school has just hit my sister with a consequential damage/loss of £25k (loss deposit £14k plus and unpaid deposit £10k plus) + £1k solicitor fees

Too late … the small print is very small.

So she paid £14k deposit and she still owed them another £10k deposit? One of the reasons for asking for a deposit in the first place is to cover any loss if the purchaser decides to not go through with the transaction.

What does she think the £24k was for? Does it go into much detail in the agreement as to what the £24k deposit would be used for or when (if at all) it would be returned?

It could be that once a place is allocated at the school, if a pupil subsequently withdraws, that place cannot be reallocated in time for school starting. In those cases the school would want to make sure that it could recover the fees it would have otherwise received. It could pursue a claim, but that’s messy and time consuming, whereas a deposit to the value of its expected loss is much much more effective.

What are the solicitors fees for? is that for trying to recover the £10k unpaid element of the deposit? Are they trying to recover that as a “debt”?

peterfile – Member

It could be that once a place is allocated at the school, if a pupil subsequently withdraws, that place cannot be reallocated in time for school starting. In those cases the school would want to make sure that it could recover the fees it would have otherwise received. It could pursue a claim, but that’s messy and time consuming, whereas a deposit to the value of its expected loss is much much more effective.

Yeap. Exactly that. “Consequential loss” … whatever they want to call it. This sort of practice is only very apparent in UK as they have never heard of it before. Pure greed no matter how you look at it as the term has already started (one month) when they applied for transfer.

Imagine if you are at the Uni and the Uni demands that you commit for 3 years without the chance to transfer to other Uni even if the Uni is shite …

What are the solicitors fees for? is that for trying to recover the £10k unpaid element of the deposit? Are they trying to recover that as a “debt”?

The fee for the solicitors (the school introduced them to us) was meant to deal with the transfer from one school to another i.e. the fees for paper works to the home office. They have not even started the process and yet they are very determined to refuse some refund.

… yep … they saw them coming. i.e. my sister and their children being a bunch of 3rd world naive hurrays coming to a traditional school to be fleeced and stepped on like maggots.

For the last few weeks the behaviour of some people really opened our eyes … a sad world but real.

Well, wish they have gone elsewhere for their education or even stay home.

All airlines have overbooking profiles for flights, because, bizarrely, loads of people book flights and don’t turn up!!!

Yep I left a seat free from Melbourne to Newcastle (UK) this time last year. the return was only £100 more than the 1-way at the time/deal so booked in just in case so I could move it but didn’t end up using it. Having got sold out internal flights here in Oz they are sometimes fairly quiet.

People often don’t show for flights because they want the flexibility of being able to decide at the last minute if and when they want to travel, a lot of (the more expensive) fare types are fully changeable and / or refundable.