EU261 Easyjet
 

Hey folks,

I've made a couple EU261 claims in the past with major airlines, had no real issues getting things taken care of. But I'm not sure if there's any entitlement here...

My flight from MLA-NAP last night was delayed 2:22, I'm pretty sure the threshold is 3:00 for MONETARY compensation, but a bunch of things I read spoke of compensation starting at 2:00...though I'm not sure for what. In the end I wouldn't even normally care, I've been delayed 2:30 on US/Canadian domestic flights in the past knowing I wasn't gonna get anything. I was enjoying my time in the lounge for the most part anyway.

But, the problem is I arrived at NAP airport well after midnight, when there was no transit service anymore, I ended up having to take a 32Eur cab ride, which he then told me was 43Eur (airport surcharge, luggage [which I had 2 carry on sized pieces, turns out they charge .50 for each? ... is that?] and some other BS scam charges). I really don't wanna get stuck with a $65CAD cab ride when I would never have paid that to begin with. Didn't help that the meter started at 6.50Eur and it was only a 15ish minute cab ride.

Is there any compensation from the airline, since we arrived after midnight? Was this just a strategically planned 2:30 delay by easyjet knowing they wouldn't have to compensate anyone? I do have decent travel insurance and credit cards, any have any experience claiming something like this or am I just totally screwed? $65CAD is a fairly trivial amount in the grand scheme of life, but I would've spent that $65 over 2 days based on the way I travel and instead I burned it in 15 minutes.

At two hours, you should be offered "meals and refreshments in a reasonable relation to the waiting time" and "two telephone calls, telex or fax messages, or e-mails" so if you bought some food at the airport or made a phone call, then you might be able to claim those costs from the airline.

Except there is an exemption where offering 'duty of care' extends the delay period. You don't want people traipsing off to the rest of the terminal getting food and further delaying the flight. It's harder to offer especially if there is a rolling delay.

Easyjet wouldn't delay a flight for strategic reasons. I can't see the point in them doing that. In fact they would be busting a gut to get flights away with as little delay as possible because of the knock on effects and issues such as crew rest onto the next flight(s)

I kinda thought I was hooped here, but I wasn't sure if I was reading everything properly. Next 2 hour delay, I'm gonna search high and low for that FAX machine!

I didn't mean that it was strategic in the reason for the delay. What I mean is in the past I've never had a delay so perfectly calculated. My flight was showing approx 2:30 delay from the minute I got to the airport, which was like 3 hours before sked time. If they thought it was gonna be any more than 3, they would've done everything they could to get out of it. I wouldn't put it past Easyjet to delay multiple flights by a couple hours to avoid having one be 3+ hours. I also wouldn't be surprised if I had been given some BS weather excuse or something. Whereas in my experience with UA/SK/LH none have ever put up a fight in my EU261 claims, in fact SK just lets you fill it out online and direct deposited it to my bank account in a couple days, couldn't have been easier.

In any case, they did really well knowing their delay in advance, this is just part of travel, but I'm just pissed I got stuck with that cab ride in the end because we arrived so late. C'est la vie I guess.

As a side note, on my most recent delayed Easyjet flight that exceed the duty of care, we were't offer a voucher for the airport but an announcement was made at the gate that onboard we would be entitled to a free soft drink and snack (I believe crisps or a chocolate bar).