UALboy

Hi all,

I was supposed to travel from ZRH to LAX on LX 40 on JAN05. Unfortunately, the flight was cancelled after a 7-hour delay. LX has put me up in the Radisson awaiting information. It sounds like they are trying to find a new aircraft and try again tomorrow.

Should I do anything at this point? I feel odd just sitting here and waiting for the phone call to come. Should I look for alternatives? What are your past experiences like? Should I anticipate travelling tomorrow morning/afternoon/?

Thanks!

Nadudvari

Do you know why the flight was cancelled?

IceTrojan

Is it due to maintenance? If so, I would have ask them to put me on another airline. You could theoretically still do that first thing in the morning.

Don't forget your EU vouchers.

Unterwegs

Usually it helps to be friendly but persistent. Look for alternate flights yourself. You could go ZRH-SFO, ORD etc and then have a connecting flight inside the US. Or go via MUC / FRA (should be easier since they would need to rebook inside the group) or any other gateway. Find space, call them and suggest something you like.

bobhope2

I have just been reading about this on my way home on the train. It was front page of Blick am Abend (this is Switzerland )


http://www.blickamabend.ch/news/erst...id3386521.html

The reason was:

«Wegen eines technischen Defekts ist das In-Flight-Entertainment-System ausgefallen»,

The inflight entertainment system was broken, so they cancelled the flight.

daumueller

i heard that not only the IFE but also all in-seat lights etc. failed so sounds like a bigger electrical failure.

UALboy

OP here. Thanks for all the advice! It is pretty crazy that I have now flown a flight that made it onto the newspaper!

I woke up on Tuesday morning and called the LX hotline to see whether there was going to be a replacement flight. It turned out that they rebooked me on BA/NZ through LHR to go home. But, there were seats opened up in the Tuesday LX40 direct flight. So, they rebooked me on the flight and I got home just 24 hours late.

Here is the longer version of the story:

A fuel leak was detected at the aircraft that was supposed to operate the ZRH-SFO flight. So, they swapped our equipment with that flight. With no additional planes, our flight was delayed till 1730 as the next equipment did not arrive from NRT till 1500 or so.

After we boarded at 1730, our Maitre de Cabine had to disembark due to a severe migraine. So, the replacement MdC was driving in from Lucerne.

At 1910, the new MdC arrived, we pushed back immediately. Then, they discovered a warning light for an overheated inflight entertainment system. So, they pulled us back into the gate. The mechanics came on and tried to reset the systems and cooled it down. But, that was not working and our flight was cancelled.

f4free

That's lots of bad luck for one trip.

athomas76

More than once I had the pleasure to wait for either LX40 or 41 - seems like from all the flights leaving around 1pm in Switzerland, LX40 has the lowest priority...

airoli

Or the highest % of inbound connecting pax... @:-)

cfischer

at least it is a clear case for EU reg261. I would have taken the BA/NZ flight and double dipped ;-)

daumueller

Still, I would rather fly 24 hours late than on an airplane with an overheating IFE (which may or may not cause a fire)...

I agree, that this experience must have been anything but pleasant (and potentially not handled well by LX?) but sounds more like a real safety concern than just the Videos not playing.

warakorn

I can understand LX completetely when it comes to an overheating IFE system.
Swissair flight 111 crashed near Novia Scotia in 1998 due an overheating IFE system.

Because it is a mechanical malfunction, you can claim EUR 600 EC261/2004 compensation. EC261/2004 also applies to Switzerland.

UALboy

I have filed with Swiss for the EUR 600 claim. However, they have denied my claim already and only offered me 8000 UA miles. After doing some searches on this forum, it sounds like I am getting their boilerplate reply.

It seems like my next step is to inform Swiss that I am filing a report with FOCA/BAZL? I have played around with EUclaim's website and it is giving me an error message saying that "EUclaim has offices in Germany, the Netherlands and England. We can only accept requests if the airline has its headquarters in one of these countries."

I have downloaded the form from FOCA and it looks like it is something that I can handle filling out.

Does it sound like FOCA is the way to go? Am I approaching this correctly? Thanks for all the help and support!

Gold77

You are 100% correct, FOCA is the way to go ultimately, as it is up to the national authority to deal with denied claims.

I know you have it already but here is the link to the English form, for pax searching this forum in the future (as FOCA only has pages in German French or Italian, it is not easy to find): http://www.bazl.admin.ch/dienstleist..._JjKbNoKSn6A--


Gievn (i) Swiss has a reputation for playing hardball with these claims and (ii) the FOCA form does not let you to explain your side of the story, I would suggest before the FOCA step that you send a short, punchy, factual, emotion-free letter back to Swiss.

In particular, Swiss will argue that the technical problem in question amounts to 'extraordinary circumstances'. This is not the case, highlight this in your letter to them to pre-empt such reply.

Good luck and let us know how you get on.