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Just not the ticket: A reader from Glenageary contacted us after having a very trying time while attempting to get home to Dublin from Kraków, Poland, with Aer Lingus in February. When he eventually made it back, he sent a letter of complaint and, apart from receiving a holding letter shortly afterwards, has heard nothing.

Half an hour before Peter Connaughton's flight was due to depart from the Polish city, a dreaded "cancelled" notice appeared on the monitor. Some 40 minutes later, passengers were informed that their plane had been transferred to Warsaw because of high winds.

He returned to the arrivals hall where an Aer Lingus liaison officer gave all passengers the option of getting a train to Warsaw to connect with a flight to Dublin the next day. "However, the lady was unable to tell us at what time a connecting train would leave or whether we were guaranteed to meet this flight," Connaughton writes. Confronted with all this vagueness, he and his wife declined the train offer.

The other option was to get the next available flight to Dublin from Kraków some 48 hours later. He says that when he asked whether passengers had any rights regarding accommodation, taxi fares, refreshments and sustenance, he was told that they did not. "In fact we were offered no assistance whatsoever," he claims.

"Aer Lingus are taking this Ryanair model a tad too seriously," he says. "Is there anything that can be done to force them to accommodate me, or is it solicitor time . . . and would that

be worth it?" We contacted the airline asking what the delay was in responding to his initial complaint and why he appears to have been offered such limited assistance.

We were told that as the cancellation was due to circumstances outside its control, it wasn't obliged to compensate passengers. This is in accordance with EC Regulation 261 covering cancellations "caused by extraordinary circumstances which could not have been avoided even if all reasonable measures had been taken".

A spokeswoman said all passengers were given the choice of transfers from Warsaw or re-booking on the next Kraków flight. She said the airline would "consider applications from passengers in respect of reasonable receipted out-of-pocket expenses incurred as a result of the disruption in accordance with its obligations under Regulation 261".

Flight change

Aer Lingus is not the only airline to have incurred the wrath of readers this week. Declan Magee contacted us to complain about Ryanair. "Recently, they e-mailed me to say that the time of a return flight from London, on which I had booked five seats, had been put forward by some 40 minutes. Our time schedule for the day was tight," he writes, "and we would be very likely to miss the return leg at the earlier time."

He rang Ryanair to say its change had thrown his plans out of kilter and was told, basically, tough luck as small time differences were not the airline's problem.

"It cost €113.52 per head to book a new return flight," he says. And while he says Ryanair staff were very polite, he believes the fact that the airline kept his money is "immoral, though perfectly legal".