Caught up in NATS issue

[Isiris]

I have this morning returned from Rhodes following 11 days holiday. 

We were due to fly home from Rhodes on Wednesday @23:55 but we were allowed to get to the airport and when we got there, we received a text message that said

Your flight has been delayed due to unforeseen operational issues. 

The flight in fact was not delayed, we were just denied boarding. They boarded another group of passengers who had had their flight cancelled. The flight took off and landed as advised on their website. 

We was put up in a hotel and then we tried again the next day where our flight was due to leave at 23:15 and we took off at 01:45

As our flight was not cancelled, they just chose to fly a different set of passengers, are we entitle to compensation under EU261

[honeybee13]

Hi.

I'm sorry you haven't had any replies yet. We have a member here, @Kyosanto who's very good on travel and aviation rules, hopefully he will pop in if he's around. 

I did post up an article from the Independent in the travel stickies section the other day but I can't post a link from my phone. 

HB

[Kyosanto]

Hi there, this is an open and shut case.

• You are due £350 (Assuming your home airport is indeed in the UK) for denied boarding under EC261. As your flight actually operated, you you were denied boarding, and there are no exceptional circumstances here for the airline to not pay you. You need to file an EC261 claim with them. Please let us know what airline it was.
• In addition it seems like you spent 24 hours extra in Rhodes. Hope you enjoyed the day? The airline already paid for the hotel so that's good. They also owe you all meals expenses from that day, as well as transport from/to the airport, so if you are out of pocket for this you need to gather your receipts and bank statements and claim for these separately from the above, under duty of care.
• In addition to the above two claims, you may have an additional £350 claim for your next flight being late. But here the departure time does not matter, it is the arrival time, and it needs to have arrived 3 hours late for you to be able to claim. Do you remember the exact arrival time?

[honeybee13]

Thank you Kyosanto, that's very clear.

Isiris, please let us know how you get on.

HB

[Isiris]

Thanks for the exact and concise reply; much appreciated. 

The flight return landed at 01:30 so we were not more than 3 hours late on arrival. 

Again, many thanks and sorry it took a while to reply. 

I will file the claim and then advise how we go ;) 

[Isiris]

Thank you. I have just submitted my claim and noticed something. 

Ill put the relevant flight numbers down

When we were supposed to fly back from Rhodes, we were flight number LS820. The next day we flew out as LS4820 (They added a 4)

I have just checked the flights from Rhodes the night we were supposed to fly home and the same again, LS820 was "Cancelled" but flight LS4820 (which was the same actual plane as I did check) flew out. 

Does this make any difference?

Thanks again