Flight Compensation Claimed For Couple After They Were Forced To Pay Ryanair £350

Bott and Co help couple claim flight compensation after they had to pay hundreds of pounds in legal fees when they took Ryanair to court over a gruelling seven hour flight delay.

Alfred and Joan Heard from Essex had their flight delay compensation case struck out of court when they made a simple mistake in their claim. The retired couple were left devastated when they were forced to pay Ryanair £350 in court fees as a result.

Mr and Mrs Heard decided to claim flight compensation when a seven hour delay on their way back from Porto tainted their 50th wedding anniversary celebrations.

“Ryanair didn’t provide us with food during the delay”

15 minutes before their scheduled take-off time of 6.30am a Ryanair rep informed Alfred and Joan that there would be a delay lasting no more than a couple of hours. A ‘couple of hours’ turned out to be several more and the couple eventually departed at 1.45pm, over seven hours later than planned.

Throughout the delay we received nothing but a £5 voucher between us at the very start. Two cups of coffee and it was gone, we were offered no food and no information.

Feeling let down by his experience, Alfred wrote to Ryanair requesting flight compensation, only to receive a response naming extraordinary circumstances as the cause for the delay.

Convinced he was entitled to compensation, he took it upon himself to issue court proceedings. Alfred put a great deal of hard work into his case, but unfortunately the smallest of errors led to the Judge striking his case out and ordering him to pay £350 court costs to Ryanair.

Alfred had written ‘Ryanair UK Ltd’ on his court proceedings, instead of Ryanair Ltd

Although a part of Ryanair is a company called Ryanair UK Ltd they do not provide the flights or sell tickets, so Alfred had not identified the defendant correctly. Those two letters “UK” meant that he’d not issued against the operating air carrier, causing his claim to be dismissed.

Not only had all his hard work claiming not paid off, Alfred and Joan had been left significantly out of pocket. When they came to Bott and Co asking if we could help them in anyway, the Flight Delay Team agreed to work on their case for free to try to make up for the money they had lost.

Bott and Co helped the couple receive the flight compensation they deserved

Coby Benson who heads up the flight delay compensation team at Bott and Co said: “This case is a stark warning for people who are considering issuing court proceedings themselves. Yes you can do it yourself, yes you can be successful, but if you make a mistake airlines can and will seek their court costs against you.

“If you do decide to take your claim to court yourself, do remember that you’re a taking on a huge organisation that will not spare any expense with their lawyers. You should expect to have to do a lot of work to prepare for litigation.”

Mr Heard had a valid claim. He was entitled to compensation. But because of a simple mistake he was ordered to pay a multi-million pound organisation their costs and ends up not receiving the full amount he was entitled to.

“I can understand how that seems unfair, but unfortunately that is the law. I am delighted that we have been able to intervene and recover this in the best possible way for Mr Heard.”

Ryanair were made to pay the couple hundreds back in flight delay compensation

After receiving £451.44 in compensation just four months from the date he submitted the claim, Alfred said: “I can’t fault Bott and Co’s service, I went from one extreme of Ryanair’s poor service to Bott and Co’s excellent service, it’s like chalk and cheese.”

*Based on 10,211 court proceedings issued between May 2013 and February 2016.