Cancelled or Postponed Flight?

Good Afternoon,

My brother, sister in law and their children (2 yrs & 8 months) suffered a 24 hour delay on a recent return trip to the UK. They were due to depart JFK on 20th April on VS46, but after sitting on the runway for 3 hours the flight was postponed/cancelled due to an engine problem. They eventually left on the evening of 21st April on the VS146 which was operated by the same, now repaired aircraft, and crew as the previous day's VS46.

I've had a read on the Virgin website of their policy concerning delays and cancelled flights but I'm not clear if Virgin will argue that the flight was delayed rather than cancelled. My reading is if it's a cancellation then it's a situation were EU Reg 261/2004 is applicable and they are entitled to 600 Euros compensation per person, assuming Virgin don't use the technical faults with the aircraft that may affect its safety exclusion clause.

One additional point is they did not take up Virgin's offer of being put up in an hotel overnight as there was an enormous queue to get a hotel voucher and they instead stayed with a friend who lives near JFK. I was surprised that Virgin did not fast track hotels for passengers with under 5's in tow.

Any advice is much appreciated.

Regards,

Mark

You should check with your credit card company. If you purchased the ticket with certain cards they give you cash benefits in the event of delay (even just 4 hours) or cancelllation.

If you made your own hotel arrangements you will not be entitled to the value of a room that others had as an extra.

As for prioritising - as far as I am aware all the airlines do it on the basis of cabin/ff status. They certainly give different grades of hotels depending on where you are sitting on the plane.

The problem is always getting to the front of the queue. The only trick is as soon as you smell a rat get ready to get off the plane asap, walk fast and get to the desk as soon as you can. There are usually 250 people all at the same desk with oftern 2-3 staff dealing with it (because these delays are always late at night so not many staff around).

As for prioritising - as far as I am aware all the airlines do it on the basis of cabin/ff status. They certainly give different grades of hotels depending on where you are sitting on the plane.

This hasn't been my experience with VS as a (Au) passenger travelling (in UC as a revenue pax) on a cancelled flight ! .
DL

The only trick is as soon as you smell a rat get ready to get off the plane asap, walk fast and get to the desk as soon as you can. There are usually 250 people all at the same desk with oftern 2-3 staff dealing with it (because these delays are always late at night so not many staff around).

Thanks for the reply. There was a rush to get to the desk for hotel allocation, however my brother and sister-in-law had a 2 year old and 8 month old which slowed progress, so they were at the back of a queue of 200-300 people. It was now after 11.00pm so I'd have expected that families with under 5's (regardless of cabin) would be allocated rooms as a priority rather than the fastest out of the blocks. As it was obvious this wasn't going to happen they made their own arrangements

[Neil]

At least they were being offered a hotel, when our flight from JFK was cancelled Virgin couldnt find any hotels so we got a concrete slab in T4 and no compensation apart from some mies.

At least they were being offered a hotel, when our flight from JFK was cancelled Virgin couldnt find any hotels so we got a concrete slab in T4 and no compensation apart from some mies.

Ouch :0 :0

At least they were being offered a hotel, when our flight from JFK was cancelled Virgin couldnt find any hotels so we got a concrete slab in T4 and no compensation apart from some mies.

Ouch. And I thought I had it bad when I got a crappy hotel

At least they were being offered a hotel, when our flight from JFK was cancelled Virgin couldnt find any hotels so we got a concrete slab in T4 and no compensation apart from some mies.

Ouch. And I thought I had it bad when I got a crappy hotel

OMG I remember that TR very well Tinuks v( v( Shameful from VS