Missed flight because of late ferry

[koster]

I travelled by ferry from the Faroe Islands to Denmark with Smyril Line, and was then due to fly with Ryanair from Denmark to the UK on an evening flight.

Because the ferry was three hours late, I missed the flight, stayed in a hotel, and bought a new flight easyJet flight for the next day. It wasn't part of a package or anything. I didn't have travel insurance. The Ryanair ticket was bought by debit card.

Aside from the terms and conditions of the ferry company (which don't seem to answer this point specifically), am I legally entitled to any compensation from the ferry company?

If I wanted to cover myself for this kind of thing on a future trip, would this generally be covered by travel insurance policies?

[Buenchico]

Almost certainly the only compensation that the ferry company MIGHT be obliged to provide (IF ANY) would be limited to a partial or full refund of the fare you paid for the ferry crossing. The terms and conditions of carriers (whether explicit or implied) always exclude 'consequential loss' and it's extremely unlikely that any court would rule such conditions unlawful. (If not, a businessman who was unable to sign a contract because of a late crossing would be able to claim for millions of euros, putting a ferry operator out of business at a stroke).

When I worked on the railways it was always stressed to us that our only contractual obligation was to get the customer to their destination. If they arrived three days late, having travelled on a dozen different buses instead of on a single train, was completely irrelevant. We'd met our contractual obligation and we had no obligation whatsoever to pay for any consequential losses. (The code agreed between the Association of Train Operating Companies and the Government would mean that the customer could claim their fare back, but not a penny more).

Your chances of getting any money (other than a possible refund of your fare) from the ferry company are nil.

Many insurance policies will pay out for losses due to missed connections but the insurers might try to get out of paying up if they believe that they can show that you allowed insufficient time in your schedule to accommodate reasonable delays. For example an insurer might expect someone flying with two different airlines (or with the same airline that only sells 'point to point' tickets) to allow at least 4 hours for a connection between flights.

Chris

[cc1]

As we all tend to remember the bad experiences with airlines, I feel obliged to pat BMI on the head. We missed the Manchester shuttle because our flight from SIngapore got in late.
BMI put us on the next shuttle at no extra charge, even though they had no responsibility for the delay and we didn't have a through ticket.