ginger50

A friend just has had his 2 January DY7148 flight from BOS to LGW cancelled and they offered to re-book him another flight on 4 January. This will be way too late for him and he will need to buy a flight on a different carrier right away.

Does anyone have any experience in getting refunds and EC261 claims from Norwegian?

Thanks

G50

Gnopps

No experience myself but remember DY has to offer your friend all of these options, it is up to your friend to decide which one to go with. Also your friend may be eligible for compensation.

1. Rerouting on the same day
2. Change of date
3. Refund

More info here: http://eur-lex.europa.eu/resource.ht...C_1&format=PDF

Xandrios

In other words - the compensation would in no way cover the expenses for buying a new ticket with another carrier. They have the responsibility to get you to your destination asap, so, I would press their staff to be rerouted onto an earlier flight. Be it a Norwegian flight, or, one of their competitors.

CPH-Flyer

Norwegian does not have any interline agreements, so they do not rebook to other carriers. Unless they changed this extremely recently.

Often1

First, why was the flight cancelled? That will determine compensation, if any?

Second, as noted above, your friend is indeed entitled to a refund of his DY ticket if that is what he wants. Presuming that he paid for the ticket with a credit card in a country with chargeback / dispute provisions, if DY does not promptly refund the ticket, he should go through that process through his card issuer, e.g. bank. Make certain that he keeps copies, including screen shots of everything showing the cancellation, including the "flight status" screens.

Third, there is no EC 261/2004 authority which would require a carrier to rebook onto another carrier. While many argue that it is implicit, there remains after 12-13 years, no authority. The LCC's on long-haul will test this as they don't have interline agreements and thus booking a passenger OA would require them to purchase a ticket for a customer on another carrier rather than simply writing over their ticket and its value.

For planning purposes, if you book DY or a carrier which does not interline, do not plan on being rebooked. In IRROPS, plan on either not traveling, waiting until there is space or purchasing a new ticket and hoping that there is compensation and that the compensation will cover costs. You can hedge this risk through travel insurance which is cheap and good value on an LCC. The good plans will simply authorize the purchase of a new ticket, if you quote them the carrier, flight, and fare.

irishguy28

An interline agreement is not necessary to buy a ticket on another carrier...and the regulation does not allow them to always wait/force the pax to wait to use another DY flight. They should rebook on other carriers where this is the most appropriate solution in the particular circumstance.

Gnopps

This is where it gets tricky. The regulation doesn't specify wether rerouting applies to all airlines or own airline only and afaik this hasn't been decided in a higher court (?). If it applies to all airlines then surely the regulation doesn't care about interline agreements - it is up to the airline to take care of the practicalities anyway. If it does not apply to all airlines then it doesn't matter.

irishguy28

Spoken like an airline attorney!!!!

Let me put it this way:

Airline A serves route XXX-YYY once a week.
Airline B serves route XXX-YYY 5 times a day.

Airline A has to cancel its flight at the last minute, and does not plan to substitute any other flight to operate in its place - so that it will be a full week before their next flight on this route. They also have no other flights from airport XXX until this flight operates again in a week's time.

You surely don't mean that airline A is within its rights to force pax to wait another week until the next flight operated by Airline A, rather than use any of the 30-odd flights operated by its competitor in the meantime?

Gnopps

I don't know, I'm neither a lawyer nor expert on this! I'm a very big advocate of the EU-rights and as I would interpret them rerouting applies to any airline. But I don't think this has been tested. (though I remember reading about travellers who have successfully made this argument in lower court instances).

See this press release for proposed changes for example, where they state that if rerouting takes longer than 12h then it should be done on any airline: http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_MEMO-13-203_en.htm

CPH-Flyer

It is not required to purchase a seat on an alternative airline, it just makes it a lot cheaper. Hence why you will have to fight fairly hard to get rerouted to other carriers by DY. And hence all the media reports of passengers being stuck 72+ hours in the US in the early phase of the DY long haul ops. Passengers were forced to wait until DY was ready to fly them back.

The necessity to rebook to other carriers is not set in stone, and the LCCs are not currently agreeing that it is a requirement. Nor doing it.

Eventually the rules will need to be clarified in that aspect. But until then, expect to wait for the next available seat on DY.

irishguy28

Yes, these are very valid points.

Often1

First, OP had never returned to answer the basic question of why the flight was cancelled. That would at least answer the basic question of whether the friend will obtain EUR 600 cancellation compensation. That seems to be a significant part of the issue.

As to the press release from 2013, the proposals were never enacted and it is four years later. So, forget about it. There is still no legal requirement for one carrier to rebook you onto another carrier and despite all of the people who start with "I think" or "it makes no sense" the fact is that if the EC wanted to change EC 261/2004, it could have done so, but has not.

While you can save a great deal of money on your tickets by flying DY, you do have to understand that there are certain risks. One of them is that you may be stuck somewhere for several days. Even if the reason for that delay qualifies you for cancellation (delay) compensation and a duty of care, you may be losing a great deal of money by not being able to work and you may have many other reasons to get back to where you need to be.

That puts you in the position of purchasing your own onwards ticket, often at very high walk-up prices or doing the one and only smart thing, which is using a very small percentage of the savings you achieve by flying a LCC and purchasing travel interruption insurance which specifically covers this situation and will purchase a ticket for you on another carrier after 8, 10 or 12 hours.

Travelers are presumably adults and don't need the EC to tie their shoes for them?

BigFlyer

Where would I find insurance with coverage as you describe?

cme17

My DY flight was cancelled due to staff sickness. Claimed compensation which was refused citing exceptional circumstances. I am in the UK and filed a case at the County Court (online via money claim online). Received a letter from their solicitor offering out of court settlement without DY admitting liability.

akshat

I was on a Norwegian CDG -> JFK flight Jan 1 that was cancelled. We were rebooked for the next day. I filed a claim for hotel, uber, food and the compensation. The process was pretty quick and painless - all online. expense reimbursement + EU compensation (600 * 3 if I recall) was in my bank account on Jan 25.
The ordeal itself was painful at CDG. We ended up uber-ing to a hotel and paying ourselves cause the agent handling was a mess.