Ryanair EU261 refund - anyone had success?

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NoRegretsCoyote

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I took a Ryanair flight with the family after Christmas and departure was delayed by just over four hours. They told it was down to a technical fault that needed an engineer to sign off on.

My understanding is that under EU Regulation 261/2004 any delay over three hours entitles each passenger to a €250 refund from the airline. There were five of us so it's not a small amount of money.

There is a part of the Ryanair website where you can make this claim but the page kept on timing out (I suspect on purpose). I gave up and just wrote them a letter outlining the delay, my rights, passenger details, IBAN, etc. I wrote another letter after four weeks as a reminder but still no refund. I had the same issue with Aer Lingus about a decade ago and the whole process was much simpler but this is Ryanair I'm talking about of course.

My only next step seems to be to take it the Commission for Aviation Regulation? Has anyone else needed to do this?
 
Pre covid we had a flight delayed 4hrs aswell. It took a few attempts to log it, I had to follow up with a mail to customer service, then the complaints section but we did get the full €250 for 4 of us so €1000 within 3 months of the flight. Our return flights were €750 total
 
NoRegretsCoyote said:
I took a Ryanair flight with the family after Christmas and departure was delayed by just over four hours. They told it was down to a technical fault that needed an engineer to sign off on.

My understanding is that under EU Regulation 261/2004 any delay over three hours entitles each passenger to a €250 refund from the airline. There were five of us so it's not a small amount of money.

There is a part of the Ryanair website where you can make this claim but the page kept on timing out (I suspect on purpose). I gave up and just wrote them a letter outlining the delay, my rights, passenger details, IBAN, etc. I wrote another letter after four weeks as a reminder but still no refund. I had the same issue with Aer Lingus about a decade ago and the whole process was much simpler but this is Ryanair I'm talking about of course.

My only next step seems to be to take it the Commission for Aviation Regulation? Has anyone else needed to do this?
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A couple of years ago I had a package holiday where the departure was delayed by a day. The airline offered vouchers - not particularly useful as the airline only flew to one airport from Ireland. I pointed out my rights under EU law but got nowhere. I went through the the aviation authority's website:

Home

www.flightrights.ie www.flightrights.ie

and eventually got the compensation. I don't remember it being too arduous a process. Looking at old emails I think the process took over 7 months. It didn't require much additional work on my side after the initial complaint. However, they did come back early on looking for correspondences I had with the airline.
 
Yes I got the compensation last september, the flight was delayed by air traffic control strikes in France. There are 2 categories, one if you want to item all your expenses with receipts a bit arduous, the other you just enter your bank details and hey presto you get 250euros into your bank account in a few days. Maybe ryanair can bill the french air traffic control for their expenses later
 
NoRegretsCoyote said:
Flights were only €600-odd return for five of us.

TBH it's a silly law where my 5-year-old is being compensated for running around a departure gate for a few hours but I'm fully intending to claim.
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I was surprised to see that the legislation specifics fixed € amounts of compensation which, over time, will inevitably reduce in real value. Strange that they don't perhaps tie the compensation to the original outlay or something?
 
ClubMan said:
Strange that they don't perhaps tie the compensation to the original outlay or something?
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Yeah I think the logic is to compensate for loss of enjoyment.

I mean you could have a €10 Ryanair flight delayed, miss a train at destination, and be forced to stay a night in hotel of arrival.
 
Received the following response from Ryanair when I claimed compensation for an outbound flight to the UK that was delayed by 3hr+:

"caused due to an unexpected equipment failure (radar failure). As this delay was unexpected and therefore outside Ryanair’s control we regret to advise that no monetary compensation is due under EU Regulation 261/2004"
 
FCBC12 said:
"caused due to an unexpected equipment failure (radar failure). As this delay was unexpected and therefore outside Ryanair’s control we regret to advise that no monetary compensation is due under EU Regulation 261/2004"
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Difficult to claim that that was inside the airline's control.

I know there is case law to say that if it is anything to do with the operation of the aircraft itself it is deemed as being within the airline's control.

My delay a few years ago with Aer Lingus was apparently something to do with a blocked toilet and they did refund.
 
NoRegretsCoyote said:
Difficult to claim that that was inside the airline's control.

I know there is case law to say that if it is anything to do with the operation of the aircraft itself it is deemed as being within the airline's control.
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What if it was the plane's radar equipment?
 
I had two separate Ryanair flights delayed for over 4 hours in 2022.
Completed simple form on their EU 261 Claim Web form for both.
First, for delay due to Engine problems, I received a refund of €400 per passenger
Second, for delay due to adverse weather conditions, was refused.
My understanding is that if it was their fault, then they will pay.
 
joe sod said:
Yes I got the compensation last september, the flight was delayed by air traffic control strikes in France. There are 2 categories, one if you want to item all your expenses with receipts a bit arduous, the other you just enter your bank details and hey presto you get 250euros into your bank account in a few days. Maybe ryanair can bill the french air traffic control for their expenses later
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Hi Joe, was this flight from Malaga by any chance? Myself and my girlfriend had a Malaga-Dublin flight cancelled in September with Ryanair blaming a French ATC strike. They refused our compensation request as they said it was outside their control. Bit of a pain, we had an extra 2 days there and we were lucky with the accommodation (family apartment) but the new flights with Aer Lingus cost us over €400 in total. Ryanair were saying they had no new flight for us until the Sunday, original flight was the Thursday.

How did you go about it?
 
WheresWally said:
Hi Joe, was this flight from Malaga by any chance? Myself and my girlfriend had a Malaga-Dublin flight cancelled in September with Ryanair blaming a French ATC strike. They refused our compensation request as they said it was outside their control. Bit of a pain, we had an extra 2 days there and we were lucky with the accommodation (family apartment) but the new flights with Aer Lingus cost us over €400 in total. Ryanair were saying they had no new flight for us until the Sunday, original flight was the Thursday.

How did you go about it?
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it was a flight from Wroclaw to Newcastle, the flight was delayed 4 hours, however I subsequently missed a connecting ryanair flight to dublin because of the delay. I entered the flight number and selected the option without itemised invoices for expenses, then entered my bank details and was credited 250 euros within a couple of days. Maybe it was something to do with missing the connecting ryanair flight but I never entered any details about that flight
 
Finally got refunded today

Timeline:
02 January: submitted claim to Ryanair (no response)
14 January: reminder to Ryanair (no response)
05 February: complained to Regulator
12 February: got receipt of complaint from Regulator
21 February: Regulator confirmed that Ryanair would pay
06 March: refund made

The whole thing deliberately made as difficult as possible by Ryanair.
 
Had a similar claim recently rejected by Ryanair on the basis that the 8 hour delay on my flight to Dublin from Italy was the fault of air traffic control. However, this sounds bogus as there was a flight to Cork the same evening which wasn’t effected at all.
 
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