Will easyJet pay rebooking fees after cancelling flight?
Q My easyJet flight from Gatwick to Berlin in August has just been cancelled. I have rebooked with British Airways from Heathrow instead (annoyingly, I live only a couple of miles for Gatwick) and will try to get easyJet to pay the difference. Can I also claim the price of a taxi from Gatwick to Heathrow?
Also, in the cancellation email easyJet have written: “The disruption to your flight is beyond our control and is considered an extraordinary circumstance.” I presume this is to get them off the hook in various ways, but is it actually true?
Rebecca H
A When easyJet cancelled your flight, it should have automatically offered you an alternative departure on a
different airline, as European air passengers’ rights rules demand. For many travellers, this is a much better outcome than just getting a refund and rebooking themselves.
If easyJet neglected to find you a suitable flight, I believe that gives you the right to buy another ticket, as inexpensively as you can, and be confident of being recompensed.
Those passengers’ rights rules, known as EU261, are poorly drafted. They cover explicitly the case of the destination city – saying that easyJet is liable for the cost of transferring you from Tegel airport in west Berlin (BA’s hub) to Schonefeld airport in the east of the German capital, where easyJet’s Gatwick flights land. But they do not cover the same circumstances in the origin city.
Evidently the spirit of the rules is that easyJet should pay, but don’t be surprised if you get your claim rejected. I suggest you take the very low-cost Gatwick-Heathrow transfer, which involves a train to East Croydon and the X26 bus direct to Heathrow (total, about £7 one way).
Finally, I suspect the line about disruption to your flight being “beyond our control and considered an extraordinary circumstance” is a bit of a knee-jerk reaction by easyJet. It is designed to protect the airline against a claim for cash compensation, as opposed to recompense. As your flight was cancelled with more than 14 days’ warning, compensation is not an issue. But the right to an alternative flight remains.