Customer reviews

Gerald Hardie, Flight ZB 0216

Who: Gerald Hardie with his wife June Hardie
Flight: ZB 0216 from Gatwick Airport (London) to Faro Airport (Faro)
Airline: Monarch Airlines
When: 10th of June 2012

The endless delay

We were going on holiday and we would be meeting some relatives who were flying from America, via Lisbon so the start of our holiday was spoilt by this delay.. Our flight was delayed by more than 16 hours because of a technical matter on a previous flight. We heard about the delay while we were waiting at the gate to board. Once we were aware of the delay we were first offered food vouchers and then we were told that due to the time of night the flight could not leave anymore as the receiving airport, Faro, would be closed. We then had to return through customs to land side and were directed outside to wait for coaches to take us to local hotels, for which the wait seemed interminable. We finally arrived at the hotel and were allocated a room at about 2.00am.  We were informed that the coaches would return at about 6.30am to return us to the airport, where the whole process of passport and baggage clearance was repeated. As you can imagine the effect was quite marked as my wife and I were very tired and spent the rest of the day catching up on lost sleep. So the effect was that nearly two days of our holiday was lost.

Entitlement

We knew we were entitled to compensation, but the majority of passengers were probably unaware of how to proceed. This was possibly due to that the majority only flew when going on holiday, but a small number who were regular passengers for business reasons were able to direct us regarding procedure. Then we found Flight-Delayed’s services online. From this point on it was left in their very capable hands  and despite receiving approval of the claim from the CAA, Monarch Airlines resolutely refused to pay until they placed it in the hands of their legal team. This resulted in settlement of the claim in excess of £500.00.

Experiences with Flight-Delayed

I think Flight-Delayed is an excellent service and it is just a pity that the airlines do not pay up with the same speed with which Flight-Delayed deals with problems and responds to clients. I hope that this may be a salutary and probably expensive lesson that they (the airlines) need to learn. The process took more than four years and the account fees are for what they do in navigating through the minefield of legislation very fair.