He told me about his chaotic return from the Canaries to the UK...

...and how his arrival at the airport was met with not only heavy snow, but a lack of service and information for passengers.

As he was telling me this story, it became clear that this snowbound scenario did not just affect him, but many hundreds of passengers who had also arrived back into the UK.

I suspect that his story is similar to many others at several airports around the UK. His flight suffered a delay at their departure airport; in-flight they were advised of the weather conditions at their arrival airport in the UK; after touchdown, there were no available ground staff to guide the aircraft in; they suffered a further 40-45 minute delay at the arrivals gate; when they arrived at the luggage carousels, they discovered many hundreds of other holidaymakers sitting on those same carousels, waiting for their luggage; there was no information or staff to deal with an increasingly tense situation; like many passengers, my friend decided to leave the airport and try and retrieve his luggage the next day!

Like my friend, I suspect that many other passengers wrote that ‘stiff letter of complaint’, only to be dismissed or sent on a merry go-round! It was clear to me that there were many people out there suffering with this failure of service and in mind of the fact that this situation would not be confined to one airport, I set about creating an action plan, which you can use if you have found yourself in a similar situation.

Firstly, there are always two companies that you should consider; the Tour Operator and the Airline. 

The Tour Operator has obligations towards you under the Package Travel Regulations; under Regulation 15, they must deal with your complaints and help you when you are in difficulty.

The airline is obligated, not just by their contract with you, but also by the Montreal Convention (delayed baggage, Articles 19 & 22).

However, both can deploy defences from within the Regulations, for example, unforeseeable circumstances and that they did all that they could reasonably do for you, but is that correct?

It is clear that many passengers were flown into airports greatly affected by the snow conditions, affecting their very operations and staffing levels. If you are struggling to to deal with poor responses to your arrival back to the UK and retrieval of luggage, there are several key questions you should ask both the Tour Operator and the Airline:

1. As you were subject to delay at the departure airport, was the Tour Operator and the Airline fully aware of the operational limitations at the arrival airport?
2. Can the Tour Operator and the Airline detail by reference to time/date, their discussions, actions and conclusions, their findings with regard to the weather conditions and operational limitations at your arrival airport?
3. If the Tour Operator and the Airline were aware of limitations, existing or increasing, why did they not divert to an airport that was not affected by weather conditions?
4. Did the Tour Operator and the Airline make that decision for economic reasons, recognising perhaps that they could potentially avoid their liability to passengers?
5. If the Tour Operator and the Airline were aware of the operational conditions, but nonetheless decided to bring the passengers back to your arrival airport, why did they not organise sufficient ground staff to deal with arriving passengers?
6. What trail of documentation exists within the Tour Operator and/or the Airline that demonstrates the decision-making processes?

Once you have considered these questions you should then:

1. Write to the Tour Operator, acquaint them with your new-found knowledge of the law, rehearse again what happened to you and set out the questions above in your complaint (always send such complaints by hard-post rather than e mail);
2. Write to the Airline and provide them with a mirror letter;
3. A third letter should be sent to both the Tour Operator and the Airline; you should make a ‘Subject Access Request’ and pay the relevant fee. Set out the circumstances and request the chain of decision documentation as to why your flight was routed back to the UK arrival airport despite the obvious operational difficulties. You should pre-empt any commentary that denies you access to this documentation by stating that you consider such documentation as relevant, because events affected you personally and indeed the operation of the contract. In my view, this is a valid request, because all too often, the link between passengers and their contracts is missed. The position is that you obviously wanted the contract to be viable and to understand the decisions made by the other party to the contract; of course, such documentation may also demonstrate that they acted reasonably towards you!
4. If any of these letters offer denial or a refusal to supply data, then you should make a formal complaint to the CAA’s Passenger Advice & Complaints Team. In doing so you should pre-empt the CAA and state that you do not consider that your complaint is appropriate to Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) at this time; tell them that there are complex defence issues and unanswered questions. You need the CAA’s help to establish these matters which once examined and resolved, can only then be considered for ADR.

I have no doubt that if you have suffered with this problem in recent weeks, then you are not alone! Focussed logical questioning can win the day; imagine if all your fellow passengers wrote a similar letter, what reaction do you think you'd all get?