Diverted to to bad weather entitlements
 

Hi

Can anyone give me some advice with regard to UK261 and what I might be entitled to?

Yesterday I attempted to fly from Luton to Ljubljana with Wizzair. First of all we were delayed departing by 3 hours and 9 minutes, on board the pilot told us it was due to them using our plane for a different flight and we had to wait for this one to land, so not due to weather. On approach to Ljubljana we were told it was too stormy and were put into a holding pattern until they decided they needed to divert to Venice as the weather wasn’t going to improve and we were running low on fuel.

Upon landing at Venice, they said that they were going to be bussed to Ljubljana but after a few hours they realised they couldn’t find any transport so we were eventually taken to a hotel for the night and this morning we are still waiting for transportation to our final destination.

Obviously bad weather usually stops airlines from paying compensation but as the late departure was their fault and planes were landing at LJU around our scheduled arrival time could I be entitled to some? It also looks like there were three other flights diverted to Venice and all of them eventually continued on to Ljubljana, where we were left in Venice.

Would I be entitled to claim back the one night’s hotel in Ljubljana that I was charged as a no show? In also have travel insurance through Curve Metal but can’t see anything on their terms that would allow me to claim this back. If I decide to not travel on their bus to Ljubljana and stay in Venice would I lose some of the rights to claim anything?

Do you have a OW or RT ticket? Normally skipping a segment causes the remainder of the ticket to be cancelled, with no refund or credit toward future travel, although IMO the bus transportation makes this ambiguous here. The airline should cover reasonable food expenses as well as the hotel in Venice, but don't expect payment for the hotel might you missed at your destination.

I think you will have a hard time getting UK261 comp. for this one. If you left with a 3h9min delay it can be presumed that the flight would have arrived at destination with less than 3h delay had it not been for diversion due to bad weather, i.e. the bad weather (extraordinary circumstances) pushed the flight over the limit. At least this is what I would expect Wizzair to argue.

You are not entitled to reimbursement of the first hotel night at destination. Presumably Wizzair arranged for and paid for hotel in Venice and this is all what the airline is responsible for. Whether you had a non-cancelable reservation or made hotel reservation at all at destination has nothing to do with Wizzair.

I suggest to move on.