Meals in case of flight delay. Experts explain why charter flight delays are connected
From October 29, new initiatives of the Ministry of Transport should come into force, according to which airlines will be severely punished for delaying charter flights. In particular, for this they will generally be prohibited from committing international flights: Rosaviatsia will make appropriate changes to the air operator's certificate.
For charter airlines this will actually mean in most cases a complete halt of activity, since it is abroad that the vast majority of charter flights are made. For conventional airlines, the cessation of international flights will also be a serious blow to revenue.
True, it is not yet clear exactly how many flights and for how long must be delayed in order to fall under the sanctions, and it is important not to go too far here: for example, since regular flights have priority over them, and at busy airports, for example, in Moscow, waiting for a slot for a flight can take several hours.
However, serious flight delays most often arise due to the lack of the required number of serviceable aircraft: the fleet size of charter airlines is usually small, and due to the breakdown of one or two aircraft, rolling flight delays occur. The reasons may not be in breakdowns: for example, in the summer, mass delays in VIM-Avia flights occurred due to the fact that the airline received planes later than scheduled; a year ago with a similar problem.
The Federal Air Transport Agency publishes delay statistics on a monthly basis separately for regular and separately for charter flights, taking into account serious delays (more than 2 hours) due to the fault of airlines. Delay rates for everyone who is more or less seriously involved in charter flights are significantly higher than on regular flights. So, if in the regular season at large companies in July this year 1-5% of flights were delayed (UTair 1.09%, Pobeda 1.47%, Aeroflot 2.65%, Russia 3.42%, S7 Airlines 4.62%, only Ural Airlines 10.65%), then charter flights have completely different figures: Rossiya has 7%, Azur Air (the largest market player) has 7.9%, Royal Flight has 8%. " North wind” delayed 9.6% of flights, VIM Avia 13.8%, iFly 19.3%, and Red Wings - 21.8%.
Now the Federal Air Transport Agency will also have to check the ability of carriers to carry out the declared volumes of charter flights, and only after that tour operators will be able to conclude charter agreements with them, Izvestia writes.
“This is for the doctor,” Andrei Kramarenko, a researcher at the Institute of Transport Economics and Transport Policy at the Higher School of Economics, laconically comments on the situation.
“In fact, not only charters, but also regular flights can be delayed. Most often this happens for objective reasons: bad weather or prolonged maintenance. But there is a caveat: in case of a long delay, passengers of a regular flight will most likely be provided with another ship, but passengers charter flight I'll have to wait for their plane to be served. Airlines, of course, are interested in resolving their force majeure as soon as possible so as not to receive a delay penalty. But passengers should also know their rights: for example, if they are delayed more than 2 hours, they have the right to demand food and soft drinks. Strict regulation of charter flights will save lost vacation days for tourists (and, most importantly, nerves), as well as save the airline from unnecessary expenses on fines and compensation to passengers, ”comments Aviasales representative Janis Dzenis.
Indeed, there are enough companies in the world that specialize in the prompt provision of reserve aircraft with crews in case of technical problems, but for charter flights this service is not used because of economy.
“In order to be able to implement any measures, clear criteria are needed. What criteria have been chosen? this moment dont clear. The announced measures are theoretically already in the arsenal of the regulator and, if necessary, can be applied to negligent carriers to one degree or another,” Anastasia Matyushina, PR Director of AZUR air, comments.
Air travel has long been included in everyday life person. Traveling by air is more convenient, takes less time, and of course, takes less effort. For the maximum short time you can be anywhere in the world. No other mode of transport is able to offer such a speed. And if you plan your trip correctly, having previously found out all the nuances, then the cost of a plane ticket can be very pleasant.
With each new day, more and more people give their preference air transport. And this is not surprising, because the positive aspects of this method of movement are visible to the naked eye. The number of airline customers is growing rapidly every day. During all this time, a certain part of the people were able to experience such a problem as a flight delay. She is no longer surprised. An airplane is a complex mechanism, and in order to lift this machine into the air, it is necessary to agree on a number of facts. Any mistake or even the smallest malfunction leads to the flight delay problem.
The most common reasons for flight delays will be described below. There are quite a lot of similar situations, so they can be classified into separate groups.
Meteorological situation
There can be quite a few reasons for this. The weather is a very unpredictable thing, and even weather forecasters cannot always provide an accurate forecast. Due to such reasons, the flight may be delayed, or the vessel may have to be treated with special means before departure. The use of such funds also requires time.
Very often a situation arises that one airline delays a flight until the weather stabilizes, while the other calmly continues to transport passengers. Some do not understand the reasons for such behavior, others are trying to find what is the personal benefit for the company. In fact, the explanation is more than simple, each company has its own air machines, which differ in model and configuration. Each aircraft has its own temperature threshold and operating conditions. Therefore, all recommendations are clearly implemented, and the company tries to take care of its passengers as much as possible.
Identified malfunctions of the airliner
The aircraft is quite a complex mechanism, in the work of which even the most insignificant trifles are of great importance. Before takeoff, the ship is checked in all respects. Identification of minor breakdowns is eliminated on the spot, it is natural that these types of work also require time. If the failure is more serious, the aircraft is taken off the flight and a replacement is sought. Such situations are rare and are included in the list of emergencies. But all the same, passengers will be delivered to the desired destination.
Most airlines really don't like it when situations like this come up. After all, such delays always leave their mark on the reputation. In most cases, the delay is due to minor repairs. Having learned about the malfunctions of the aircraft, any passenger can panic, so the administration prefers to name other reasons for the flight delay.
Airliner late arrival
This is the most common reason for the airport administration. After all, it sounds harmless and does not cause much suspicion among passengers. Therefore, very often at airports you can hear just such a justification for delaying flights. But what is alarming is that in certain cases such a reason is not true.
Interruption of ground services
Flight delays may occur between arrival and departure. It is in connection with this that various kinds of problems can arise. The reasons for this delay are incalculable. In most cases, the human factor plays a role. This may be the delay of the attendants, prolonged cleaning in the aircraft cabin, or a long unloading of the luggage department.
In such situations, the flight delay does not last too long, the maximum it can take is about 30 minutes. Usually such a time does not cause much panic among passengers. Everything happens without nerves, and the reasons are quite reasonable. In the event of more serious situations, when the flight departure is delayed due to disruption of ground services for more than two hours, then each passenger has the right to demand a refund of part of the ticket price.
Passenger rights
If the flight is delayed, but the passengers did not hear the announcement justifying the delay, then the first thing to do is to contact the employee at the check-in desk. In most cases, the passenger does not receive a clear answer to the question posed. Most often, you can hear some common reasons that should not cause unnecessary excitement on the part of people. And this is logical, because any company values its reputation.
Actions of citizens
No matter how the situation develops, a conscious passenger must make a special note on the flight delay on his ticket. It is this mark that will give grounds to demand a discount or even refund the money for the ticket. It is this right that is guaranteed to every passenger in the event of a long flight delay.
Special rights of air passengers are noted in case of a flight delay from 30 minutes to 2 hours. The airport administration is obliged to provide free luggage storage, as well as to ensure free stay of women with children in a specially equipped room.
Rights in case of a flight delay from 2 to 4 hours guarantee the possibility for passengers to make two calls to anywhere in the world. These calls must be paid by the airline. Free distribution of cold or hot drinks is also guaranteed.
A flight delay of 4 to 6 hours provides for free distribution of food at intervals of 6-8 hours.
If the flight is delayed for more than 6 hours, the airline must provide passengers with a place to sleep. Naturally, this cannot be a waiting room. The company is obliged to pay the hotel and all transportation costs.
Compensation
Be that as it may, in any case, the delay in departure is the fault of the transport company, even if the cause was. Each passenger can reimburse part of the ticket price. The maximum part of compensation is 50%. But at the same time, the administration is obliged to pay all the cash costs of the passenger while waiting for the flight. It can be anything - paying for tickets for other modes of transport, paying for visits to various entertainment venues, paying a bill in a restaurant or cafe. The only caveat is that the passenger must provide all checks, otherwise the refund will not be made.
Special cases
If the passengers went on vacation, and the ticket is included in the total cost of the tour, then you can make a claim for payment for the missed vacation days. If the application is not submitted within 20 days, it will not be considered in the future. Sometimes a flight involves a transfer, which is performed by one airline. Naturally, the passenger will not be in time for the proposed second plane. Therefore, upon arrival, the administration must take care and place the passenger in another aircraft absolutely free of charge. Moreover, if a person was flying in economy class, and there are only seats in business class, then he must be put in a department advanced level. If the situation happened exactly the opposite, then the company is obliged to pay the difference.
How should compensation be sought?
In this situation, you need to take care of the availability of evidence of a flight delay. The airport administration must request a certificate of aircraft delay. This paper must be stamped, justified reasons. A person while waiting for his flight can use any services. The main thing is to keep receipts, which will clearly show the time. You can go to a restaurant, rent a hotel room, and so on.
Such situations are resolved very quickly, because no carrier needs to create scandals. will affect future work, so it is desirable that the passenger be satisfied.
There are companies that may refuse to refund money. In such a situation, you can safely sue, attaching to the case all Required documents. To seek the return of money through the court - laborious process, but in most cases, the truth is always on the side of the victim.
In order not to get into an awkward situation, you should always have extra money with you. Indeed, in such unforeseen situations, they can be very much needed.
Actions in case of violation of the passenger's rights
This situation is very unpleasant, but leaving everything as it is is not an option. It is necessary to achieve justice and return the money spent. First you need to collect all the necessary package of documents, namely:
- Air ticket directly. It must contain the necessary marks about the flight delay.
- All checks and receipts for expenses that were needed due to the flight delay.
- A clearly written letter stating all claims and requirements.
All collected documents must be enclosed in an envelope and sent to the main office of the company.
If within 30 days the passenger has not received a response from the airline, then you can safely file an application with the court. And after some time, justice will be restored.
The rules and regulations described in the article apply to all types of flights. Even if a charter flight is delayed, the rights of passengers remain the same. The carrier bears the same responsibility. The consumer should receive quality service in any case.
AdvertisingDelays of charter flights have become regular, daily the Federal Air Transport Agency records from three to 13 such cases. The day before, Azur Air delayed a charter from Domodedovo to Vietnam by 14 hours, and Ikar Airlines delayed a flight from Novosibirsk to Kamran by 16 hours. To improve the air transportation market in the tourist segment, federal agencies can transfer charter flights to regular status.
In this tourist season, the Federal Air Transport Agency records at least 3-4 delays of charter flights daily. passenger traffic for more than two hours. Some days more than ten flights are delayed. According to the Federal Air Transport Agency, 13 charters were detained in Russia on August 6.
In the first days of August, Azur Air came out on top in terms of the number of delayed charters. On August 1, the air carrier delayed one flight, on August 2-3 - five each, and on August 6 - six, including a flight from the Moscow Domodedovo air hub to Nha Trang (Vietnam), which was delayed for 14 hours.
According to the schedule, the flight was supposed to take place on August 5 at 15.25, but the flight was first postponed to 20.45, and then postponed every hour. Desperate passengers on the delayed flight tried to block the same airline's flight to Antalya at 4.30 am. According to news agencies, people were chanting: "Help, shame on Azur Air."
The Federal Air Transport Agency notes that the reason for the delay was a malfunction of the aircraft and its forced replacement. On the same day, two more Azur Air flights to Turkey were delayed at Domodedovo (for more than 12 hours each) - also due to aircraft malfunction.
The departure of the charter flight "Novosibirsk - Antalya" of the Royal Flight airline is delayed by 9.5 hours due to a malfunction of the aircraft.
According to the schedule, the Boeing 757 was supposed to take off from Tolmachevo Airport on August 7 at 8:00, but has not yet departed for Turkey. Now the estimated departure time has been postponed to 17:30, according to the airport's online scoreboard.
“The landing is not even announced. We registered at 12 noon, passed all customs, inspections. And from that moment we sit in the waiting room.<…>The exit number was first given to us, then removed. They write: "Delay"," one of the passengers of the charter told NGS.NOVOSTI.
According to her, there are many passengers with children in the waiting room. “There are no very small ones, babies - from 1.5–2 years and older. They have already eaten all the chocolates from the machine, drank all the soda, chips and all that, because the children are hungry - they arrived in the morning. No food has been provided yet,” the passenger said. Already in the afternoon, tourists were offered soft drinks - as a result, a queue lined up for water.
The Ministry of Transport of the Russian Federation, together with the Federal Air Transport Agency, is developing a package of bills that systematically solve the problem of disruptions to charter flights during high season. tourist season, the Izvestia newspaper reported on Tuesday, citing a source in the aviation industry.
According to the newspaper, the new measures will be aimed at "preventing the creation of conditions for delays and cancellations of charter flights carried out on orders from tour operators." They will also imply a tougher response from the aviation regulator and "the inevitability of punishment for air carriers that have failed." According to Izvestia, the departments also plan to finalize the mechanism for canceling airlines' permits to operate international charter flights.
“One of the initiatives that is already being discussed is the introduction of a mandatory requirement for airlines to provide information to the Federal Air Transport Agency on the planned volumes of charter passenger traffic ... There is a discussion about the possibility of abandoning the practice of transporting tourists to mass holiday destinations on charter flights, chartered by large tour operators.
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Air transportation problems often affect the quality of our tourists' rest. Increasingly, you can hear about egregious cases of delays or cancellations of flights, it would seem, rather large and well-known airlines. For example, the recent problem that caused a lot of noise that arose among tourists with VIM-Avia. Of course, one can argue a lot about who is to blame for this, speaking on lengthy topics, but it is worth remembering that living people who have planned their vacation or are forced to fly to another city or country due to some family circumstances suffer from this first of all. And these people maybe hoping they get to another connecting flight to continue on your journey. But suddenly they find out that their flight is canceled or delayed, and it doesn’t matter if it is direct or charter. What should they do in this case, what steps should they take? How to get compensation for ruined vacation?
It is difficult not to get confused in such a situation, especially if it happened to you for the first time, or your flight was a connecting flight, or you were tied to the time of your arrival. But it is worth remembering that your plane ticket is nothing more than an agreement with this airline, which has undertaken to deliver you, as a passenger, to the point of the planet you need and at the time you need, otherwise, it undertakes to take care of its passenger if the circumstances did not go according to plan.
Each passenger should know that the Civil Code of the Russian Federation stipulates cases when an air carrier is not liable for cancellation or delay of a flight, these are: various natural phenomena - fires, snow drifts, hurricanes, floods; non-flying weather; sudden hostilities; complete cessation or regime of restriction of cargo transportation in a number of directions; in some cases, during a strike of airline or airport personnel, in the presence of malfunctions, threatening life and health of air passengers. In all other cases, the fault lies with the airline that violated its obligations under the contract.
First, let's take a closer look at what happens when a direct or charter flight is canceled by an airline.
- The flight can be canceled a few days before the plane's departure to the destination.
In this case, the airline traditionally offers passengers several ways to solve the problem of a flight cancellation: an alternative to flying on a different route of the same carrier or a flight from another company, but the destination remains the same.
The passenger has the right to demand a full refund of the cost of his ticket. For example, if you bought one ticket for a flight with transfers, then you are required to return the amount for the entire route. If a passenger bought two tickets, for example, Moscow-Barcelona and separately Barcelona-Valencia, and the first flight to Barcelona was canceled, then you will be refunded only the amount spent on the ticket from Moscow to Barcelona, and you will need to return the ticket from Barcelona to Valencia in the usual fare mode. If the cancellation of the flight affected the second part of the flight - Barcelona-Valencia, and you were not provided with alternative options, but the trip has lost its meaning, then the air carrier is obliged by law not only to refund the money for the ticket to Valencia, but also to deliver you back to Moscow free of charge. Regarding the refund for round trip tickets, you will be able to refund their full cost if the flight is canceled and if you did not purchase them separately, but in the form of a “round trip”, that is, two tickets on a single form.
- The flight can be canceled or delayed when the tourist is already at the airport.
The airline is obliged to give you clear information about the reason and time for which the flight was delayed. You have the right to demand this information from an employee of your airline, and he is obliged to offer tourists options for their further action. Often, an airline employee makes a proposal to transport tourists to their destination by another aircraft or a flight of another carrier. And subject to the fault of the air carrier, this flight will be free for the tourist.
Not all passengers who have suffered moral and material problems due to the cancellation or delay of flights are aware of their rights to receive compensation. This compensation varies, depending on the timing of the transfer and cancellation of the flight, as well as the distance to the desired point. If the airline is at fault, it is legally obliged to give the passenger three percent of the cost of his ticket for every hour he spent waiting, as compensation for the flight delay. This is stipulated in Article 28, paragraph 5 of the Law "On Protection of Consumer Rights". In addition, pay in the form of a fine twenty-five percent of the minimum wage for each hour of waiting, but this amount cannot exceed half the price of the air ticket. Other additional compensations for canceled passengers are not issued when flights are canceled, but every tourist has the right to receive a refund of the amount for tickets or exchange them for a similar flight.
The rights of a tourist-passenger with a flight delay of more than two hours:
Making two phone calls or sending two emails; - you are required to provide free drinks; - if you have children under the age of seven with you, you must be given free access to the mother and child room.
The rights of a tourist with a flight delay of more than four hours:
The passenger must be fed hot meals free of charge, and fed every six hours - during the day and every eight hours - at night.
The rights of tourist-passengers when the flight is postponed for more than eight hours during the day and more than six hours at night:
The airline must bring and check you into the hotel at its own expense, and provide you with a free transfer there and back. According to the legislation, tourists do not have the right to settle in the same room with strangers. If the passenger did not like the provided room or the proposed hotel, then he can find a suitable option for himself, and the airline must pay an amount that will be equal to the price of the original accommodation option offered to it. The tourist can pay the price difference for the more expensive room he has chosen or pay for his stay in full, but we recommend that you keep the payment receipt in this case in order to return part of the money spent, if available objective reasons refusal of accommodation according to the option proposed by the air carrier. But, you should know that if you refuse the number offered by the airline, you lose the right to a free round-trip transfer, but the air carrier must store your luggage at its own expense.
Where can tourist passengers complain to get compensation for a canceled or delayed flight?
If there was a cancellation or delay of an internal direct or charter flight of a Russian company, then claims are considered in accordance with the legislation of the Russian Federation. Passengers' complaints against foreign airlines that have not fulfilled their obligations to them on the territory of the Russian Federation are also considered in Russia. But when an airline postpones or cancels a flight abroad, litigation is conducted in the country and according to the laws where it happened, and the place where the air carrier is registered will not play a role here.
Claims are submitted by the passenger personally at the airport of his departure or upon arrival at the place. When there is no representative office of your airline at the airport, there are no employees on site, then the claim is submitted through the airline's website. Although emails can often be ignored, it is best to send your claim by certified mail to the airline, making a detailed inventory of the attached documents and keeping a copy of your statement, confirmation of dispatch, as this can be used in legal proceedings if the air carrier ignores you or refuses compensation. According to our Russian legislation, a passenger has the right to present his claims to the air carrier within six months from the date of cancellation, delay of the flight.
I would like to touch upon one more important point for tourists, a very topical one for Moscow airports. Very often, passengers are taken to an airport other than the one indicated on their ticket. In this case, the airline is obliged to deliver the tourist-passenger to the desired destination on free transport. And this rule applies to all airports in the Russian Federation.