WHAT ARE MY RIGHTS IF I GET ‘BUMPED’?
Have a question? Ask our expert Simon Calder
Q I have been watching the reports about Jo Wood being “bumped” from an easyJet flight from Spain and wondered if you can answer a follow-up question? If two people are travelling together and the airline says, “There’s only one seat so one of you has stay and one fly,” what is the position if the travellers say, “If we can’t fly together then we will both stay”? Does the second traveller, who has now “voluntarily” missed the flight, have any rights?
Steve M A Legally, the strict answer is no, but the airlines know that telling one person in a couple to offload is
tantamount to denying boarding to both of them, and will (in my experience) always treat them both as involuntary offloads.
As a reminder of what that entails: if you are “bumped” from a flight, you must be handed a written statement of your rights. The three important elements:
1. You are entitled to “re-routing, under comparable transport conditions, to their final destination at the earliest opportunity”. This is a thorny one, because airlines tend to make their own interpretation of the rules. easyJet says it has up to 48 hours to put you on one of its flights before it has to consider paying rivals to transport you. But the Civil Aviation Authority tells me: “In circumstances where there is a significant difference in the time that a re-route can be offered on an airline’s own services and flights provided by other airlines, then it would be reasonable that a re-route should be made on another airline.”
2. The carrier that denied you boarding must immediately compensate you by cash, bank transfer or cheque. The payment varies according to the length of the flight: it’s €400 (£350) for a typical Mediterranean hop where you arrive at your final destination three hours or more behind schedule.
3. The airline that has bumped you must pay additional expenses such as meals and accommodation while you wait to reach your destination. If the carrier fails to deliver care as stipulated, you should keep receipts for refreshments (except alcohol) and accommodation in order to claim it back.
Every day, our travel correspondent, Simon Calder, tackles a reader’s question. Just email yours to s@hols.tv or tweet @simoncalder