How to claim compensation when a flight is delayed
Going on holiday is an exciting experience for everyone. In the run up to your departure date, you’ve probably enjoyed buying the essentials such as suncream and new swimwear, plus making your travel arrangements to and from the airport, as well as organising your travel money and everything else in between.
We can plan and be as organised as possible, but sometimes things can still go wrong. Back in June, my husband and I took our five year old twins to Disneyland Paris.
They’ve never been before so my husband and I wanted to make it as much of a magical experience as we could. I did so much research before booking our holiday to make sure we could fly from our local airport and get to and from our hotel with ease.
In addition to that I’d planned all of our meals and booked them all in advance, as well as a number of different character experiences.
I did so much research and organising before we went that I never envisaged anything going wrong. Our journey to the airport was straight forward. There was no traffic and we made good time.
We parked the car, unloaded our cases and checked into the airport. We then made our way through departures and had some breakfast before we boarded the plane.
Our plane was due to take off at 11.30am. When 11.30 arrived and we were still sat in the departure lounge watching other passengers board their flights that were due to take off after ours, we started to get frustrated.
The airport screens just said ‘waiting to board’ and all of the staff members appeared to have disappeared from sight, almost as though they were hiding from us!
The lack of information was the thing that bugged me the most. If someone had just come and told us that the plane was delayed by however long, then we would have accepted it. I’m not saying we’d have been happy, but at least we would know the situation.
When I did find a member of staff they were clueless as to why we weren’t boarding.
Although our magical trip to Disneyland Paris didn’t off to a great start, it did thankfully get better! When we finally arrived, we had a wonderful time and our flight home was on time!
The problem with your flight being delayed is that it can be more than just an inconvenience, especially if you have someone waiting for you at the other end to pick you up, and that’s where plane delay compensation can really help.
If you’ve been left waiting around due to your flight being delayed, there’s legislation in place to protect EU passenger rights. This can be applied by solicitors to claim a flight refund or compensation for you on a ‘no win, no fee’ basis so it’s something worth looking into.
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