I am wondering if any of you had similar experiences with flight cancellations.
Based on the EU rules, is there something we can do.

Here is my situation:

I had a confirmed reservation with Ryan Air from Venice to London Stansted on Dec 28th 9:50 AM flight. I was going to catch my return flight to San Francisco from London Heathrow on Dec 29th.
However Ryan air after checking in all our baggages, cancelled the flight citing bad weather conditions. After making us stand in line for over 4 hours, they said their earliest availability was on 1st Jan and they refunded my ticket price.
I had to rebook my flight from Venice (since
it was too late to try any other option to go to London) and I had to spend over $3500 (for 4 tickets). What recourse I have against Ryan air according to EU rules?
Thanks!

I'd suggest posting at FlyerTalk and see if you can get some tips. I know that it's very difficult to get money out of Ryanair, to say the least. In addition, the EU airline rules are ambiguous and if a flight is cancelled for a safety reason, it may be impossible to get compensation. That's not to say you shouldn't try, of course.

That's a very stressful situation you must have been in, and it's very hard to figure out the best option on the spot. If anyone is thinking of doing this, and does not have changeable return tickets, I would advise considering travel insurance that would cover this scenario.

See if anything helps on this site:
http://tinyurl.com/agbab

Good luck, but unfortunately I don't think you have any recourse.

From the website WillTravel provided it says the airline is not obliged to pay compensation if the cancellation or re-routing is due to &quot;<i>meteorological conditions incompatible with the operation of the flight concerned</i>&quot;

In other words weather delays/cancellations are not compensated - just as usually happens in the States.

I doubt if you have any recourse to Ryanair for the cost of your transatlantic tickets only (possibly) in additional costs incurred in Venice. Your contract with them is to get you from Venice to Stansted and if Ryanair offers to do that then their contract is fulfilled even if they get you there several days late and by bus.

It's a warning to folk to not to rely on ANY airline to make an important connection if you aren't through ticketed and the importance of travel insurance

That is the risk you take by flying low cost carriers like ryanair. If everything goes fine, it is cheap. If something goes wrong you don't have to expect much help from them. Since the reason for the cancellation was fog in London, you can forget any compensation. They refunded your tickets, and you don't have to expect more.

Compensation from RyanAir??

Fat chance!

Given how conditions were in Britain this past week, I'm not sure it would have made any difference who these tickets were booked with if the flight indeed had to be cancelled. Many people took days to be rebooked to various destinations on British Airways.

But is there any suspicion that Ryanair invented this excuse on Dec. 28 (many people have suspected them of shading the truth in the past)?

Based on this blog report that might be for the same flight, it appears Ryanair did not invent the excuse.
http://acrix.blogspot.com/

&quot;But is there any suspicion that Ryanair invented this excuse on Dec. 28?&quot;

Racing bleeding certainty.

The only fog in the British Isles on Dec 28 was in most of our brains. There were some very high winds, but mostly in the extremities planes rarely get to (Yes, there are strips of concrete in Britain and Ireland Ryanair haven't started flights from yet, however unlikely that might sound).

But round most airports, wet gusty gloom that everyone else flew through happily. If gopinathpc wants a bit of fun, s/he might try demanding their &euro;250 a head compensation, and see Ryanair's evidence of bad weather.

If nothing else, the reply might qualify for a &quot;cheekiest excuse of the year&quot; award

WillTravel

I hadn't seen your post when I wrote mine. So I take it back.

Ryanair were telling the truth for once.
Miracles do happen at Christmas.

No, Flanner..the only &quot;miracle&quot; here is that you finally admitted to a mistake!!!!

Try this site -

http://www.ryanaircampaign.org/

It may not do you any good but it will make you feel better. And you can bet your bottom dollar that the company reads it as they've tries to shut it doen twice but the UN's World Intellectual Property Organisation last week dismissed claims that the website contained &quot;unture, misleading and defamatory remarks&quot;.

A number of years ago we needed to return from Milan to Paris a day before our return flight from Paris to the States. When we got up that morning there was an unscheduled train strike in France and there was no way to get to Paris by train. We finally managed to get a flight late that afternoon (fighting with the thousands of others who were trying to do the same thing) and I nearly developed an ulcer worrying about missing our flight the next day. At least we had a one day cushion.

What that taught me was to never schedule less than a one day delay between some distant city and our departure point for an international flight -- it's just too risky.

Given the flight delays and cancellations because of fog, wouldn't any separate bookings have created the same problem for gopinathpc? This may be one instance where Ryanair or any other cut-rate airline would have been no different from major carriers. I am assuming that the $3500 also represents a change in the trans-Atlantic flight.

I don't agree with that, but I don't know how long the bad weather held. If the reason they couldn't rebook someone for a couple days was because of the weather, maybe, but I suspect it was just because that was the next time they had a flight with available seats. Really, you get what you pay for, if people want to book real cheap flights on airlines like Ryanair, they can't expect &quot;compensation&quot; when flights are cancelled due to the weather and they can't get on another one within a day or so. If they had booked a major carrier and the entire route was on one ticket, I imagine they would have gotten rerouted sooner and wouldn't have had to buy their own ticket. I don't understand why anyone would expect compensation or recourse for flights cancelled due to the weather and they choose to spend thousands on other tickets because they decide to fly to different cities on other airlines, which is what happened here. Ryanair doesn't create the weather.

Fair enough Christina, particularly in your indication that it is wise to book one carrier all the way through. But you seem to suggest that this problem would not happen if the poster had booked a flight on more expensive airlines, BA or Alitalia, for example. If those airlines had full flights also (which is likely considering the dates) why would they be any more likely to offer anything better? I don't see that the problem is unique to Ryan Air or any other &quot;budget&quot; airline. Why would people be any more likely to expect compensation if they had booked a different airline, which seems to be what you suggest?

Christina: I agree w/ NeoPatrick. Booking on a single ticket certainly would help.

But whether a budget ot &quot;legacy&quot; airline would make no difference - since weather delay/cancellations are compensated by neither.

oops - meant to say &quot;. . . .in general weather delays/cancellations are compensated by neither.&quot;

Even a one-day delay wasn't enough in this case. Either a single ticket itinerary or travel insurance probably would have worked (although you can still get delayed for several days on a single ticket itinerary if the weather is bad enough, although you won't have to pay for the rescheduled flights generally).