Lufthansa adventures

[izard]

4:50pm your flight to Munich is delayed by 20 minutes. (Me - I see on the flightradar, thunderstorm on incoming flight route was not your fault.)
5:10 your flight is cancelled. Please start rebooking or eventually we‘ll rebook for you. (Me - $&@$!)
5:35 We changed our mind, your flight is delayed by 20 minutes. (Me - writing a post in Facebook with a great relief)
6:00pm more delays
6:20 we changed our mind again - your flight will fly to Hannover instead of Munich, starting preboarding
7:00 preborded passengers removed from the plane, it will be probably cancelled but wait for another hour.

8:00pm they tell us we‘ll fly to Hannover in an hour. Half of the passengers still think the plane flies to Munich because it is still marked as Munich bound at the gate and live timetables in the airport, and voice announcements are not readable.
8:40 pre-boarding started, ppl removed from the plane enter it again.
9:20 we are in the airplane, captain announces that Lufthansa will provide a bus for those going to Hamburg and Berlin, and hotel night for those travelling to Munich. However the plane still will not start until some paperwork is done, and if it is not done in an hour we’ll have to disembark.
Julia at this point had a wild conspiracy theory which of course can't be true. Captain confirmed that we could as well now fly to Munich, but the paperwork to divert to Hannover is done and logistics of another diversion would take too much effort and time. All the passengers arriving to Munich will lose their connections, and because of football European cup hotel places in Munich are very expensive, so LH could divert to Hannover because a lot of ppl were flying to northern Germany so could be bussed to the destinations. It is cheaper to host a few flying to Munich in Hannover than many flying to northern Germany in Munich.

10:15pm starting taxiing. Captain announces that ppl traveling to Munich could buy train tickets and Lufthansa might later reimburse (or not), because there are no places on Hannover to Munich flights next day. I switched off airplane mode and quickly bought 3 tickets for earliest flight to Munich from Hannover.
6am next day: captain on the flight from Hannover to Munich. „Dear passengers, we don’t have any water, drinks and food on this flight. This airplane was supposed to land in Munich yesterday evening but went to Hannover instead. Lufthansa management has recently decided to cut costs and fired catering staff in all German airports but Munich and Frankfurt.

Question: how likely is it that Lufthanda would reimburse us the cost of Lufthansa tickets from Hannover to Munich? I already applied for the reimbursement, so let's see.
Answer: They quickly refused to compensate for Hannover to Munich flight, because diversion to Hannover was not their fault.

Comments

[juan_gandhi]

I got a feeling I read it already.

[izard]

true, I just copy pasted from my facebook with minor additions

[klebestr]

If the problem was caused by the weather condition it might be a problem. But otherwise yes, your arrival in Munich is delayed by many hours and the flight is operated by an European airline - those are the main conditions to get a comp. https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/travel/passenger-rights/air/index_en.htm

[izard]

They just responded that they won't compensate the cost of Hannover to Munich flight: "Der Grund für die Flugunregelmäßigkeit war Luftraumbeschränkungen. Auf Umstände, die Dritte zu verantworten haben, haben wir leider keinen Einfluss. Damit ergibt sich aus einer solchen Flugunregelmäßigkeit auch kein Anspruch auf Schadenersatz an Lufthansa. Wir bitten Sie um Ihr Verständnis, dass wir für Situationen, die wir nicht verschuldet haben, keine Haftung übernehmen und Ihrer Forderung nach Entschädigung nicht nachkommen."

[klebestr]

Я однажды потребовала компенсации от ЛОТа за задержку, но не сама, а через фирму, не помню какую. Фирма скассировала треть, но деньги мы получили, платишь только с успеха. У них юристы, у них есть все сведения о Luftraumbeschränkungen, о погодных условиях и пр. Наверное, они даже не начинают тяжбу, если уверены, что ничего не добьются. Можете попробовать. Та фирма, которую я использовала, была зарегистрирована в Риге, все было чики-пики. Знаю, что люди, которые сами сражались, ничего не достигли, правда, не знаю деталей.