My flight was delayed for 10 hours... what are our rights?

Q Earlier this month we flew from Norwich to Palma de Mallorca. Although we booked through Tui, the flight was on a Spanish airline, AlbaStar. We were delayed by 10 hours – which meant we arrived at our Airbnb on the island at 3am rather than at 5pm, with nothing to eat or drink.

We want to claim compensation but Tui says AlbaStar is responsible. I have heard nothing from them apart from two generic emails and doubt I will hear more. People have suggested making a legal claim through the small claims court. What do you advise?

Paula

A How frustrating. Tui is quite correct in directing you to claim from the airline that delayed you. When a company subcontracts the flying to a different carrier, the legal obligations transfer.

AlbaStar is based in Palma in Spain. In common with all foreign airlines flying from the UK, it is supposed to comply with air passengers’ rights rules – specifically paying compensation of £220 for a delay of three hours or more on a flight of under 1,500km (annoyingly you are just 37km short of the next level of payout, £350).

The trouble, as you have discovered, is securing the stipulated compensation. Before Brexit it would have been a fairly straightforward matter of claiming under the European small claims procedure – a continent-wide version of Money Claim Online, formerly known as the small claims court. But the UK decided to leave the EU, and this is one of many consequences flowing from that choice.

One day soon, the Civil Aviation Authority may do more to force overseas airlines flying to Britain to meet their consumer protection obligations, just as they do with safety requirements. In your position I would choose to sit it out and see if that happens; your claim remains “live” for six years under English law.

Alternatively, if you have contact details for a significant number of other passengers on the delayed flight, you could begin joint proceedings using a lawyer based in Mallorca. But I do not advise that course of action on your own: it could prove expensive and doubly frustrating.

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Q Is there a way or site I can use to monitor the French strikes, which would affect air travel into France? We have flights and hotels booked separately.

Philip T

A To identify industrial action that could affect British travellers to, from, over and within France, I use a variety of sources – starting with coverage in The Independent on political developments in France, as well as French national media. Alerts from the US State Department can also prove valuable. In the particular case of potential air-traffic control disruption, I aim to cross-check with the unions involved as well as the DGAC, the French civil aviation authority.

Whatever the results of that research, I accept that the consequences are unpredictable. I have flown to, from and over France during strikes by air-traffic controllers with just the odd delay of an hour or two. Conversely, I know from covering the past few walk-outs that contagion can easily spread across airlines’ networks and affect passengers whose plans are going nowhere near France.

So advanced knowledge of potential action is one thing; how that may affect an individual traveller is in the lap of the travel gods. In your case, booking flights and hotels separately increases your risk exposure: if the plane is cancelled and there is no other way to reach your destination, the hotelier may choose to decline a refund on the grounds that your room is ready for you, and the fact that you can’t reach it is your problem, not theirs. Next time, consider booking a package – which makes the holiday company responsible for sorting you out, or providing a full refund if you are unable to travel.

Having said that, should your flight be cancelled, sorting out an alternative becomes the airline’s problem. Under European air passengers’ rights rules, you are entitled to reach your destination on the original day if at all possible. And if that involves the carrier buying you a flight on another airline (or even Eurostar and connecting trains), so be it. In practice, the chances of an alternative flight being readily offered are low, so you may have to pay and claim back.

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Q I am flying from London to Edinburgh in early August. I have sent my passport off for renewal and I know it could take 10 weeks, which would mean the end of August. I checked with the airline’s customer service line to ask if I can use my photo driving licence. To my consternation they said “no, it has to be a passport”. If the new one doesn’t arrive on time, can I cancel, get a refund and go by train instead?

Name supplied

A You have been misled. No airline asks for a passport for flights within the UK, and I can only imagine the customer service person didn’t quite grasp that this was a domestic flight. There is no legal requirement for photo ID on internal UK flights but airlines are allowed to ask for proof of identity to reduce ticket fraud (such as Person B using a ticket sold to Person A, breaking the conditions of contract and possibly making a profit into the bargain).

Ryanair asks all passengers aged 16-plus to carry “any photo ID which matches the passenger’s name in the booking”. For easyJet it’s something official: a driving licence or a passport that has expired in the past five years, for example. British Airways merely “advises” that you carry photographic identification, adding enigmatically: “This may be requested at certain points in your journey.” And Loganair needs photographic ID only when you are checking in luggage. This should be “government issued” but the definition is broad enough to include a bus pass.

As I have previously mentioned, the 10-week stipulation by HM Passport Office for a straightforward renewal such as yours is ridiculously pessimistic, and I will be surprised if you do not have the document within two weeks of posting the old one off. Finally, even though the government is enticing more people on board domestic flights by halving air passenger duty three months ago, the train is much more civilised and environmentally friendly. And unless you are travelling on a railcard-reduced ticket, you won’t be asked for ID. So go by rail next time, perhaps.

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Q I am desperate to find out if my current passport is valid for a fly-cruise holiday that my wife and I are booked on. My passport was issued on 4 September 2013 and expires on 4 April 2024. The trip involves flying to Corfu on 1 September 2023, followed by cruising to a series of EU countries over the course of a week and back to Corfu on 8 September.

Robin K

A Your passport is valid for travel to the European Union up to and including 3 September for a stay of 90 days, ie until the beginning of December 2023. For a land-based holiday starting on 1 September for a week that would present no problem. In theory, once you enter the European Union for a cruise, you should be “signed in” for the duration of the voyage. But I fret that the cruise may include a call at a “non-Schengen” member of the EU – notably Cyprus. In this case, you would need to be stamped out of the Schengen Area and into Cyprus, which has its own immigration system. Your passport would not compliant for crossing an EU frontier from 4 September onwards.

I may be worrying unnecessarily about this aspect. Even so, there are two cruise-specific issues that could work against you. The first is that the cruise line may wish its sailing to be counted as outside the European Union between ports of call; I am not an expert on border arrangements for cruises, but I believe being outside the EU may have on-board tax benefits. Again, your passport would cease to be valid for entry to Europe after a couple of days.

Secondly, on an itinerary such as yours I think it would be reasonable for the cruise firm to demand that all passengers have an EU-compliant passport for the duration of the voyage. Suppose, for example, there were a technical issue that required the ship to put into a port in non-EU Montenegro; a cruise line would not want to have passengers on board whose eligibility for returning to Corfu and the EU was in question.

So apply for a new passport online this weekend, and I am sure you will have your new document in a couple of weeks.

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