I have a question about whether a $100 travel voucher is sufficient compensation for a flight that is delayed over 8 hours not due to weather. I was on a Hawaiian Airlines flight from Honolulu, Hawaii to Auckland, New Zealand but right before we went in the air, the takeoff was aborted due to an "unreliable airspeed indicator," which I later learned. After the sudden stop, the pilot told us he saw an indicator he didn't like and not to worry about the ground crew approaching us because they were only checking the plane. The cabin crew kept downplaying the situation without giving us any facts, telling us not to worry about the emergency crew or the smoke smell because it was "ummm, only smoke" and we could see people in suits spraying the underneath of the plane with water and foam. The fact that it was obvious they were lying to us when we could look outside and see commotion made the situation more scary than simply saying it was an aborted takeoff due to the airspeed indicator and that it was normal for the tires to overheat due to the braking.
So after about 2 hours on the plane, they de-boarded us with movable stairs and loaded us into buses. We had to wait until that night for another plane to arrive. They gave us a $20 voucher for food and some blankets and snacks. When the plane arrived almost 9 hours after initially boarding the first plane, we were given $100 Hawaiian Airlines travel vouchers to make up for the inconvenience. I have been told by multiple people that this is not enough for a 4+ hour non-weather delay. Also, once I boarded the new plane that I realized I must have dropped my NZ phone in the seat of the first plane.
When I got to Auckland I had my dad call the US number for HA and they said they had my phone but I needed to pay $75+ to get FedEx to ship my phone to me, and I paid less than that to buy it. Unable to call HA on a local NZ number, I sent them an email asking them to please waive the FedEx fee for me since if there hadn't been the problem I wouldn't have lost it, and I also mentioned that I heard a $100 travel voucher was very low for such a delayed flight. After 3 weeks I got a very snooty response saying $100 was enough in their guidelines and they would not waive the cost to release my phone to me.
So I'd really like some facts when I contact them again. Like what are the regulations on US International flights that are delayed for over 8 hours. Thanks for any help you can give me.
(link to article on the flight:
http://www.stuff.co.nz/travel/travel...aborts-takeoff)