Airline: Booked through Delta, operated by Alitalia
Flight: TLV->FCO
Class: Economy, paid with money
Incident: Flight delayed by an hour, then cancelled after they already boarded us, then alternative flight was delayed by an 1.5 hours --> arrived to FCO 6 hours later than scheduled
Compensation: None so far
On June 16th My husband and I flew to Rome from TLV. We were scheduled to go on flight AZ #815 leaving at 10:35AM, arriving at 13:20.
The night before the flight (at 23:30) we got a phone call from an Italian representative informing us the flight is delayed by an hour (leaving at 11:35AM). Once we boarded the flight and sat on the plane for an hour without being offered any water or being explained what's happening. Finally the told us we have to get off the plane because there is a technical issue and it's too risky to fly...
They told us to pick our luggage from the carousels and basically start all over again (going to their desks, finding another flight, checking in, going through security again) to be rescheduled for another flight. There was a huge mess, hundreds of people in a small space with confused representatives... finally they put us on the next flight, flight AZ#807 leaving at 15:40, arriving at 18:30. No food vouchers were offered to us. That flight was delayed by 1.5 hours, getting us to Rome at 20:00 (6 hours and 40 minutes after the original estimated arriving time of the original flight). AND my flight back didn't have the vegan meal I ordered, although I confirmed it over the phone with them, and I ended up eating crackers and some dry shredded veggies
According to their website and also EU's air passenger rights (
http://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/travel/passenger-rights/air/index_en.htm) we are entitled to a compensation of 400 Euros each. I called Alitalia's customer service in Israel and it was pointless. She said they didn't have a way to control the technical issue and I don't deserve anything, but I think that if this is true it was anyway not responsible to board people on the plane without testing it first. She suggested me to write them an email but she was very nasty (typical Israeli customer "service") and I'm not hopeful about sending an email, especially that she directed me to their Israeli email address and said it can take up to 5 weeks to reply to me!
So my questions is, what should I do next? I'm not ready to give up. Should I contact Delta? (I booked the tickets through them and their customer services is usually ok).
The EU website has a complaint form, has anyone tried it?
http://ec.europa.eu/transport/themes/passengers/air/doc/complain_form/eu_complaint_form_en.pdfThank you,
Mila