El Al flight changed at airport due to short layover at Ben Gurion - liability for compensation/refund?

Question

I had a flight booked from Madrid airport to Bucharest(OTP) via Tel Aviv with El Al.

The first leg was scheduled to land at 0430, with the second leg taking off at 0700.

On arrival at Madrid I was informed that this was not permissable as the minimum layover time at Ben Gurion is three hours. Both flights were booked as a single booking though the El Al website.

I was offered a later flight from Tel Aviv, but that would be an 11 hour delay and would mean I missed the meetings I had scheduled in Bucharest - which was the whole reasons for taking the overnight flight. Therefore I refused the offer and left the airport.

As El Al sold me flights that they then could not fulfil I would expect to get a full refund of the ticket price. Is this correct?

Also, (and this is where it gets a bit more complicated), this was part of a larger trip. LHR -> Madrid -> OTP (via Tel Aviv) -> London. As a result of this I had to find a hotel for the night in Madrid and then arrange a flight back to London the following day and also cancel my scheduled flight from Bucharest to London. Are El Al liable for these costs as well?

I'll be putting all this in writing to El Al, but would appreciate any insight into their liability here.

Thanks!

EDIT: El Al have agreed to refund the flight and pay €600 compensation. Alls well that ends well.

Answer 1

While the itinerary is weird to me, and El Al apparently wouldn’t suggest it if you searched for it directly on their site, when you come from Skyscanner as you did it seems to be sold as a regular connecting flight with a 2h30 layover in TLV.

As such, the flight should be covered by EC261.

It’s difficult to be certain, but I would suppose this would qualify for a cancelled flight. The EU’s Air passenger rights website says:

Cancellation occurs when:

• your original flight schedule is abandoned and you are transferred to another scheduled flight

(…)

Note that case law tells us that a series of connecting flights is considered like a single flight from origin to final destination, so while neither individual flight was cancelled or rescheduled, the fact that they wanted to change your second flight should be equivalent to a change is schedule.

In this case, you would be entitled to:

• your choice of refund, rerouting, or return. Since you were at the origin, no return possible. They suggested an alternative (rerouting), but you didn’t take it, so you should be able to get a refund (probably would have been better if you said so at the airport but I don’t think this changes anything)
• since you were informed less than 14 days before departure, unless they can prove they notified you in time, compensation of 400 euros.

You can’t claim for the OTP-LON flight, and since you didn’t take a re-routing option which would have required it, not for the hotel either. All your costs are considered covered by the 400 € fixed amount.

Of course, there are chances they will claim extraordinary circumstances, but the case would be quite flimsy.

Still, expect them to refuse all of it or part of it for whatever reasons, and for the whole process to last a while. Stand your ground and reiterate what you are owed. In some cases it’s easier to use one of the companies which does all that for you (and have the lawyers to push it), but they’ll of course take a good chunk of it.

Good luck!

Answer 2

To add to @jcaron's great answer, here's how I would file for EU261 compensation based on a prior experience.

1. File a request with El Al requesting compensation
2. Most likely they'll stonewall you or outright deny compensation, which is fine
3. Once it's been a month since filing a dispute with El Al (or immediately after they deny you compensation), file a dispute with the Spanish Aviation Agency (AESA), attaching all the evidence that you have. No need to involve intermediary companies such as AirHelp, as they follow the exact same process.
4. Most like the AESA will rule in your favor and El Al will pay you 400 EUR for your trouble. Note that the airline is not liable for your hotel room or your flight back to London, as per the current rules.