RYANAIR have baffled two Scots pals after their flight was cancelled – by paying compensation to one and refusing the other.
David Drummond and Alistair Rae took a trip to Warsaw last month but found their return flight to Glasgow was cancelled thanks to Storm Ophelia.
Alistair applied for over £160 compensation and this was quickly paid into his bank account.
But David, who was due to be on exactly the same flight, received an email telling him there would be no cash because the flight was cancelled “due to adverse weather”.
The pair, both 20, were due to leave the Polish capital on October 16 on Ryanair flight FR4742 but were told the day before by text it had been cancelled.
Instead, they had to shell out extra for Wizz Air flights to Aberdeen, staying the night in a hotel, and getting home by train the next day.
Ryanair refunded £29.59 each for their own cancelled flights but then took a bizarrely different approach to the friends’ compensation claims for the Aberdeen flights, hotel stay and trains.
On October 29, David got an email from Ryanair telling him: “We sincerely regret the cancellation of your flight FR4742 from Warsaw to Glasgow on the 16/10/17, which was due to adverse weather conditions (Storm Ophelia), outside of our control.
“As this cancellation was unexpected and therefore outside Ryanair’s contol we regret to advise that no monetary compensation is due under EU regulation 261/2004.”
But Alistair checked his bank account on Tuesday this week and discovered that the full claim of £165.26 had been paid in without him even being notified.
Alistair said (Thu): “Without receiving any email or form of contact, £165.26 appeared in my bank account.
“Obviously we were doing exactly the same journey and in the same situation so it doesn’t make sense why I got a refund and David didn’t.”
He added: “David phoned them today and they said he filled out the wrong form but it was him that directed me to the correct form so we know 100% we filled out the same form.
“And I definitely claimed the refund for the return flight, I have got it on my bank statement.
He added: “To be honest it’s just ridiculous how a company like Ryanair, who so many people depend on for their holidays, are able to get away with cancelling flights at such short notice without giving a reason.
“We were left with the option of either waiting four days and taking the next Ryanair flight home or paying our own way back to Glasgow.
“Given the amount of cancellations recently we weren’t taking our chances waiting on the Friday Ryanair flight.”
He added: “I just find it baffling that they’re able to pick and choose who they give compensation to despite the fact we’re in exactly the same position and dealt with the issue in exactly the same way.
“I can’t see us flying Ryanair again in the future, it’s all been a farce.”
Alex Neill, Which? Managing Director of Home Products and Services, said of Ryanair: “It must honour its legal duty to arrange alternative flights or provide a full refund, inform passengers of their rights and proactively pay compensation and reimburse reasonable out of pocket expenses.
“This highlights once again the need for automatic compensation across the industry.
Ryanair should now take the initiative and pay out to passengers it knows are entitled to compensation without making people jump through hoops.”
Ryanair say that neither man should have received compensation because the flight was cancelled due to bad weather.
A spokesman said: ““This flight was cancelled due to safety concerns over Storm Ophelia that day (16 Oct). As this was an ‘exceptional circumstances’ cancellation, no EU261 compensation is due, but both passengers received their chosen option of a refund of their unused air fare.
It appears that Mr Rae subsequently received a €250 EU261 compensation payment due to an admin error by one of our reservations agents.”
Last month Ryanair were forced to apologise for what they called a “one-off error” when Mark Newman was denied compensation after his flight from Brussels to Edinburgh was cancelled with six days’ notice.
Mark was given the same “no further liability” explanation as David, but Ryanair later admitted their mistake and promised to make a payment.
In September and October Ryanair were forced to cancel flights of hundreds of thousands of passengers because of staffing issues, but still announced that they expected to make record annual profits.
