Volcanic Problems
 

To Whom It May Concern:

Myself and my wife travelled to Newark from Edinburgh (U.K) on 8 may 2010. We were due to travel back on the Sat 15 May at 10.20pm.
Due to volcanic ash Edinburgh and most Scottish and Irish airports closed. We knew it was likely and were not suprised when the flight was cancelled. We asked staff what we do now, by now 3 couples had gathered with us, and were sent to see a C.A. rep. Nobody even had a chance to ask a question, before she barked that NOBODY WAS TO GET ANY COMPENSATION. We didnt mind too much but the elderly couple queuing beside us were scared and nervous enough without the aggressive manner. We just wanted to know how we would get home.

We were told to re-book a flight at a check in desk. We were advised by a helpful member of staff the next direct Edinburgh flight would be on Tuesday. She then reviewed the situation and offered flights to london heathrow, 8pm on 16 may and London - Edinburgh connections on the 17 may 12.55pm. We accepted and got the tickets, no complaints and proceeded to find a hotel for ourselves.

The next day we arrived at the airport early. A few hours before our flight all U.K flights were again cancelled. Same story again in a queue for nearly 2 hours. It took one person on average 40mins to re-book and there were two staff dealing with our queue of about 100 people.
We proceeded to ask to re-book our flights to Edinburgh, they said first available were saturday 22 may. Same for London and various other UK airports. She said the first available flight to the U.K was via Bristol on wed 19 may. We said that would work, and asked about connecting flights from Bristol to Edinburgh. We were told that they were not allowed to do that, even though the last employee had issued us tickets with British Midland for London to Edinburgh. She said we would just have to go direct to Edinburgh on the 22 may or accept the Bristol flight. We accepted the Bristol flight because it got us home 3 days earlier. We were annoyed that C.A could change their policy to suit each idividual employee. If they have a bad day so does everyone they see.

We did in the end turn up for our Bristol flight early to see if there was any chance of being on standby for Edinburgh as we were there anyway. A nice staff member said there were no available seats to Edinburgh but two had become available on London Heathrow an hour earlier than the Bristol flight,giving us more travel options to Edinburgh. We changed to London. We found on the flight within view of our seats approx 11 seats were empty.

We got off the flight 7.40am and proceeded from our terminal to terminal 5 C.A help desk. It took about 45mins to get our bags and bus. I proceded to tell the employee the situation. I said i would like him to book us a flight home. He told me there was nothing he could do, he said i could have changed it because i was visiting sombody in London. It had taken 45 mins after landing in a different terminal in London Heathrow to arrive at his desk, who could i have visited in that time? He then said i should keep all Rail tickets/receipts to Edinburgh to claim them back. He said i would not be able to claim anything if i were to fly. Why i could only re-claim if going by rail i dont know so i walked away bemused as to the reason for this. We did in the end use rail and it cost about £120 each.

We will be trying to claim back our money out of principal. We will not fly Continental Airlines again, there is probably another page full of faults i could have written. We will repost upon outcome of complaint.

GOOD LUCK TRAVELLERS :D