Originally Posted by
mrow
That’s not correct, the BBC are right, as per
https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/f...ts+Sept+29.pdf:
1. First, move the customer to the next available Ryanair flight on the same route. If this option is not available same or next day, then;
2. Move the customer to the next available Ryanair flight from/to a suitable alternative airport/s (for example: Luton or Gatwick in the case of Stansted). If this option is not available same or next day, then;
3. Offer the customer re-accommodation on any one of our agreed disruption partner airlines to their destination as follows; Easyjet, Jet2, Vueling, Cityjet, Aer Lingus, Norwegian or Eurowings airlines. If this option is not available same or next day, then;
4. Offer the customer re-accommodation on any comparable alternative transport (another airline flight, train, bus or car hire) with the cost of this comparable transport ticket to be assessed on a case by case basis.
Originally Posted by
mrow
Originally Posted by
corporate-wage-slave
Thanks for that quote, which is interesting for future reference. It's clearly an attempt to limit their financial exposure, but it also seems to me that they are mirroring BA's approach with this idea of "partner airlines" (I bet easyJet were surprised to read that!), like the JBA and oneworld relationships. Perhaps this is fair enough as a policy document, but it won't save FR from a strict reading of EC261 which make no such distinctions, it is fully biased in favour of the passengers and with no bias anywhere on keeping costs down for airlines.
I agree. I thought it interesting how the document was written in the form of try 1 and if unsuccessful (based on limits defined by FR) try 2 and so on as opposed to saying that passengers could select whichever option was going to give the best result.
Clearly an attempt to limit exposure on the part of FR but I am not sure how far they’d get if challenged on it. After all, a flight on BA in 4 hours is more likely to be in the customers best interest than a flight tomorrow on FR. Would be interesting to see whether the ‘same day or next’ limits would hold water in the event that they were challenged by a passenger who was offered rebooking on a flight tomorrow on FR but refused rebooking onto BA today.
One interesting (to me) thing is that given that this approach follows the CAA's high-profile intervention, it seems possible that the CAA is content with this final position. I haven't seen any more complaints from the CAA that RYR isn't doing what it needs to do.
So it is possible that the CAA is also signalling that it is content for all airlines to adopt a layered approach of this kind. Might BA possibly be drawing some comfort as well as feeling some discomfort from what has happened here?