alfredooo

Hi,

I was on QR 16 (LHR-DOH) on the 24/11.

As we were on final approach to DOH the pilot aborted landing. We circled for 25 minutes or so and then tried to land again. This time the wheels were down - but again we went around. The captain then informed passengers we were diverting to Bahrain because of rain in Doha. Yes, rain.

After 2 hours on the ground in Bahrain, we eventually landed in Doha at 11.25am - 3 hours 50 minutes late.

As a result myself and four colleagues missed our connecting flight to Manila - and were rebooked for the later flight (arriving a full 18 hours after we were meant to)

Side note - QR were extremely pushy and difficult with the rebooking process - refusing perfectly acceptable alternatives on Emirates and Eithad. They also 'forgot' to mention that QR had a flight to Clark Airport (a 90 minute drive to Manila) which would have got us in considerably earlier.

Anyway - just looking at EU flight delay compensation. Do you think this sort of weather event counts as an extraordinary circumstance? It seems other QR flights did indeed land safely.

What would your course of action be?

Thanks,

Alf.

Work-Shy

Weather events/delays are excluded from EC261/04 so you are not eligible for compensation. The only time weather is an extraordinary circumstance is when:

- The flight in question is directly affected by ‘freak’ or ‘wholly exceptional weather’.

- Air Traffic Control decides to reduce flow rates due to bad weather. For example, if ATC decides only 20 planes an hour can land as opposed to the usual 45 planes an hour, that would be an extraordinary circumstance.

- Air Traffic Control decides to delay a flight, and this causes a knock-on effect to flights throughout the day.

- An airport is closed because of bad weather.

msm2000uk

When it rains in Doha, the place pretty much floods...so I can believe there being issues at the airport.

In terms of EU261, weather is an Extraordinary circumstance, so no payment will be due.

With regards to rerouting onto EK or EY, I'm very surprised QR didn't do this.

However, they won't do it automatically, and they need to be pushed (a supervisor is needed) to make the changes.

The best advise with IRROPS is to plan yourself - and thus provide the airline with the routing you want.

As for the flight to Clark, it is of course possible that there weren't 4 seats in J available, but that is an irrelevance at this stage.

IRROPS are a pain, whether they're for an hour or 18, and the stress that goes with it is even worse.

M

Phil the Flyer

Two comments:

- It sounds as if the OP wasn't contemporaneously aware, while exploring EK and EY MNL alternatives, of the QR DOH-CRK option. This only appears to have been realised after the event.

- At the risk of being picky the OP, a) doesn't state his class of travel (J or Y) and, b) needed five seats (myself and four colleagues).

Whenever I fly QR J DOH-MNL Y is generally packed to the rafters.

Anyway, there are far worse places in the world than DOH to have to endure a lengthy delay. Hopefully QR were able to look after the OP's group while on the ground in DOH.

chilledflyer

I wouldn't trivialise the weather as just "rain". I flew in and out of DOH that day and there were severe thunderstorms and torrential rain. Let's just say the descent into DOH that morning was very bumpy. Pilots don't take the decision to divert unless it is unsafe to land.

As for handling irrops, it really depends on the class of travel. I was travelling in J and missed my connection to ARN yesterday due to being delayed inbound. I was met at the end of the airbridge and was put onto a flight to LHR as per my request. In your situation, the QR staff probably should have suggested putting you on a flight to Clark, but to be honest, they would have been dealing with hundreds of rebooking and if you wanted to get to Clark as an alternative, you probably should've suggested it.

I saw a hoard of Y passengers simply told to make their own way to the transfer desks for rebooking to be sorted. In an irrops situation, it sounds like class of travel and status do make a difference in terms of how flexible QR is prepared to be.

R2

I've only ever had one experience of irrops with QR and they handled it excellently. I was travelling OSL-DOH-CRK in J. Due to a mechanical issue, the departure from OSL was delayed by a couple of hours causing me to miss my connection to CRK. Upon arrival ay DOH, I was met by QR ground staff who already had a new boarding pass for me on the next flight to MNL some 8 hours later. He escorted me all the way to the HIA airside hotel where they had arranged a room for me. And at MNL I was again met by a QR rep taking me through immigration and customs to a pre-paid taxi to take me to Clark, although by that time I had changed my arrangements and decided to stay in Manila instead.