Eight-hour delay: what can you expect from easyJet?

Declaration of interest: even though I was not flying on easyJet’s flight 8303 from London Gatwick to Milan Malpensa on Tuesday 15 July, I had a strong interest that the Airbus A320 should depart on time. One of my sisters, Penny, was visiting another sister, Kate, for an important birthday. Penny was carrying messages and gifts from the extended family.

What could possibly go wrong? Over to easyJet, in the early hours of Tuesday morning.

“Scheduled: 9.20am. Estimated 2.54pm”

A delay like this – of five hours or more – triggers all manner of rights for the passenger. In particular you have the option to cancel for a full refund, or switch to another flight.

The good news: there were plenty of other flights. Ten minutes after the plane to Milan Malpensa was due out, easyJet had another departure to Milan Linate. If that did not suit, easyJet offered two other flights to Milan Malpensa. I checked, and seats were available. You could buy them online.

EasyJet could have invited passengers facing a five-hour delay to change to an earlier departure, but chose not to do so.

Instead, Britain’s biggest budget airline merely provided a “click here to see your rights” link, thereby fulfilling its legal duty.

That is easyJet’s choice – as is the airline’s decision to continue selling seats on the flights that would have got the delayed passengers to Milan much earlier. Instead, they were sold to new customers.

The origins of the delay? Well, from what I can see from the Flightradar24 tracking service, things went badly wrong on Monday night at Milan. The plane due to operate the flight was stuck overnight in Brindisi, southeast Italy, of all places.

EasyJet initially warned of a delay due to “a technical baggage issue” at Milan Malpensa.

Later, a spokesperson told me: “This delay was caused by air traffic control, resulting in the crew reaching their legally regulated operating hours.”

The airline insists: “The disruption to your flight is outside of our control and is considered to be an extraordinary circumstance.” In other words, you can whistle for the £220 compensation prescribed by air passengers’ rights rules.

We are not talking here about isolated airports with limited resources. Gatwick is easyJet’s biggest base. Milan Malpensa is the airline’s largest hub in continental…