Virgin facing major compensation claim over flight delay

A group of 90 airline passengers are seeking more than £50,000 in compensation from Virgin Atlantic after their flight was delayed for 26 hours.

The group of passengers formed a Facebook page to claim compensation directly from Virgin but were offered just £50 of air miles.

Now their case has been taken up by compensation law firm Bott & co, which claims this is the biggest group claim for flight compensation under EU regulation 261/2004.

It said the flight from Orlando Florida to Gatwick was delayed after a failure in the fire detectors within one of the engines.

The flight was scheduled to leave on October 27 2012 until the technical fault was discovered and passengers were left stranded for several hours until they were put up in a nearby hotel.

"Having not been offered any food until breakfast the following morning passengers, they then left the hotel at 2:30pm but due to further delays the flight did not depart until 9:35pm that evening," said Bott & Co.

"Most of the claimants kept in touch via a Facebook page set up by one of the passengers, James Fell, which kept everyone up to date with their efforts to claim compensation directly through Virgin Atlantic. Despite the huge delay, and many passengers being left hundreds of pounds out of pocket, Virgin Atlantic offered just £50 worth of air miles as compensation."

Bott & Co said that although Virgin claimed the technical fault was an "extraordinary circumstance" so was exempt from compensation under EC Regulation 261/2004, the law firms and passengers strongly believe the issue could easily have been prevented.

Andrew Peters, legal manager at Bott & Co, said: "What we consider to be legitimate claims for compensation have been denied and in our view the issue is clear cut and the passengers have been left with no alternative other than to instruct us to enforce their legal rights through the Courts. The cumulative value of this claim exceeds £50,000 and is one of, if not the, biggest claims for delayed flight compensation that we know of."

Fell, the passenger who set up the Facebook page, said: "Virgin Atlantic ground staff were rude, did not keep us informed of what was happening and there was no sign of any Virgin Atlantic representation at the hotel. This led to a collective feeling of anger at how we were being treated and it was at this point I decided that a Facebook page would be the best way to keep in touch so started gathering email addresses.

"What we would like now is for someone at Virgin Atlantic to answer our questions as to why they feel it is acceptable to treat its passengers this way. The facts remain that the first of the three successive faults occurred in the UK, days before the aircraft left Gatwick then again as it flew to the US. In my opinion they have failed to do everything in their means to avoid the delay and failed in their duty of care to the passengers."

A spokesman for Virgin said it is in communication with Bott & Co regarding the matter of EU delay compensation.

"We believe this technical problem was the result of extraordinary circumstances that could not have been avoided even if all reasonable measures had been taken and therefore not eligible for EU Delay compensation. In addition the UK Civil Aviation Authority have investigated the background to this flight delay and have confirmed it was the result of extraordinary circumstances."