March 13th - Flight delays, your rights and how to claim them
Simon Calder's Independent Travel Podcast
The Independent
3.6 • 628 Ratings
🗓️ 13 March 2023
⏱️ 13 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Recently airlines have been letting us down, with a lot of delays to journeys across the industry. It's a good time to be reminded of your rights as a passenger; when you claim for compensation due to delays and what is counted and not counted as a delay.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to today's independent travel podcast. It's Monday the 13th of March. My goodness, over the past week, there have been thousands of flight delays and cancellations. And so I thought it would be good time for one of those regular catch-ups where my colleague, Charlotte Hindle, asks lots of questions and I do my |
| 0:22.9 | best to answer them. Hello, Charlotte. Yes, hi. So lots and lots of people are really confused about |
| 0:31.4 | when they can and when they can't claim for delays on planes. So could we just start with when you can claim? |
| 0:43.1 | Well, you have absolutely a duty of care from the airline to you if it is a UK airline or it's any airline leaving anywhere in the UK or more widely Europe |
| 1:00.8 | or indeed coming back if you are on a UK or European flight and the rules are very |
| 1:08.0 | straightforward once the delay hits two hours if you're flying a short distance, three hours if you're flying a longer distance, |
| 1:16.6 | or four hours if you're flying a very long distance, then the airline has to provide you with meals |
| 1:22.6 | and if it turns it out to be necessary accommodation entirely at its expense and it is supposed to organise it. |
| 1:31.6 | But also, is there some monetary compensation? |
| 1:35.4 | Well, that all depends on what the cause is. |
| 1:39.4 | If it is something that is clearly beyond the airline's control, That might be a security issue. Very often, |
| 1:45.8 | it's terrible weather that certainly put paid to a lot of flights over the past week or so. |
| 1:51.4 | And if the weather hasn't got you, then quite possibly the French air traffic control strike has. |
| 1:56.5 | But if it's something that the airline has control over, and that might be just a technical problem |
| 2:03.3 | because the airlines are supposed to keep airplanes |
| 2:05.4 | in tip-top condition, yes, they will have to compensate you |
| 2:11.2 | if you arrive at least three hours late. |
| 2:15.9 | Can you just give me some examples of when you can't claim for a delay? |
| 2:21.0 | Weather? Bad weather, yes. Strikes, although there is some dispute about whether if the |
| 2:29.3 | airline's own staff are on strike, whether or not you should be able to get some compensation. |
| 2:37.9 | Staff shortage is generally regarded as a cause for you getting compensation, but I'm |
| 2:45.0 | afraid it's one of these very messy things where I've got a few times some cash compensation that has been pretty much |
... |
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