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The 2016 BA compensation thread: Your guide to Regulation 261/2004

The 2016 BA compensation thread: Your guide to Regulation 261/2004

Old Mar 17, 2016, 11:27 am
  #226  
 
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Cancelled again.

Not having much luck this trip another flight cancelled !!!
BA8460 AMS to LCY March 18 cancelled at the end of check in on my mobile app about 23:55 mins before departure. No reason given : called BA in Amsterdam and kudos to them we were rebooked on the next flight to LCY BA8454 but had to wait to be technically off loaded as we had checked in.......
BA 8454 is at 16:20
BA 8460 was at 13:40 so outside the 2 hours (landings times similarly) and therefore should be claimable in EU261 I think.
Can't see how this one is weather or extraordinary circumstance related ......
Does anyone here have info as to why it was cancelled ? BA didn't ..... I assume it's due to a fairly empty flight ?? And I assume we should be able to claim EU261......must say we are very impressed with how BA compared to North American Airlines rebook passengers !!!
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Old Mar 17, 2016, 11:57 am
  #227  
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Originally Posted by aircrashsurvivor
Not having much luck this trip another flight cancelled !!!
You are having a few issues. This is what ExpertFlyer says:

FLIGHT CANCEL 1243
DAMN

Which joking apart means damaged (I believe). And yes, it looks like you're in with a claim here, though make sure you get the precise timings when you fly - you best claim afterwards. Intrigued by your comment about BA being good in this area. I've never had any real trouble getting rebooked on BA, but AA seem able to restructure entire itineraries very swiftly with the right agent on the task. Which is just as well, given how often it happens.
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Old Mar 17, 2016, 2:12 pm
  #228  
 
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All I meant was BA have been very good. They have automatically put us on the next flight to london even though we called the agent said they would have rebooked us regardless which is good I guess because not everyone can or does check in at 24hrs like I do. When we called there was no issues rebooking. Although with our LHR CDG flight last week we didn't get on the next flight as they said it was full..
With NA airlines we have rarely had an easy time get rebooked... Flights are either too full to get on and we've waited as much as 24hrs to get on a flight or we've had to make several calls to get rebooked. Not to mention having to wait what seems like forever to get through on the phone ..... And rarely if ever is there any duty to care and no compensation. Although I believe there is a drive now to improve that to get in line with EU airlines.....
I'm interested to see what "damage" is 24hrs out. You'd think BA has enough metal and crew to replace a plane .......
I will keep track of times although I'm sure they are centrally logged also but I can't see this coming inside of 2 hrs.... And I believe for this distance AMS-LCY it's 2 hrs delayed landing and 190 each
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Old Mar 17, 2016, 3:19 pm
  #229  
 
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My recent experience of claiming compensation may be of use to some here. I was booked NCE-LCY last October, and the flight was cancelled around 24 hours before I was due to fly. I was offered a flight leaving an hour and a half later to LHR which would have meant arriving home around two and a half hours later than planned. On that basis I believed I was due compensation, but it took some time. I set out in the first mail why the regulation should apply, but the answer I got back said that as I hadn't been delayed by more than four hours compensation didn't apply. The answer was wrong given the late notice of the cancellation. I replied on two further occasions, each time receiving in reply a fairly garbled version of what the regulation actually says. Finally I sent a polite mail saying that as we didn't seem to be in agreement I would just pass the matter onto CAA and fill in their form. Within days I had a mail saying compensation was payable, and soon after it was in my bank.

I think the key lesson is get to know the regulation, and be persistent if you're sure it should apply. The escalation paths also seem to work well.
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Old Mar 18, 2016, 1:25 pm
  #230  
 
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Looking for some advice please, recently had a 3:04 delay, put in a claim but BA have turned it down. They admit that 2 hours 20 is their fault due to a technical problem with the aircraft operating the inbound sector but the remaining 44 minutes delay was due to offloading a sick passenger, spouse and baggage on the instructions of the Captain from our return flight to the UK. According to them I have no basis for a claim, is this correct? Thanks.
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Old Mar 18, 2016, 1:31 pm
  #231  
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I believe this is correct. Sick passenger is outside the airline's control. Also I would never want them to start making decisions about offloading based on the possible financial consequences.
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Old Mar 18, 2016, 1:58 pm
  #232  
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Originally Posted by Nimrod1965
According to them I have no basis for a claim, is this correct? Thanks.
It's a grey area and can be argued both ways. Removing sick passengers is an inherent activity, and BA's rules regarding unaccompanied luggage are what they are. The bar is now quite high, birdstrike is no longer considered exceptional since that's also inherent. Personally I wouldn't bother with this, unless I had a massive sense of grievance, and a district judge may well be sympathetic to the airline, or may not be sympathetic. Given it's 4 minutes over, and assuming BA handled it as well as they could I'd let it rest, but you are liberty to take it further if you are so minded.

If this came up 3 years ago I doubt an English court would have found in your favour. Now I'm not so sure.
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Old Mar 18, 2016, 3:20 pm
  #233  
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Originally Posted by corporate-wage-slave
It's a grey area and can be argued both ways. Removing sick passengers is an inherent activity, and BA's rules regarding unaccompanied luggage are what they are. The bar is now quite high, birdstrike is no longer considered exceptional since that's also inherent. Personally I wouldn't bother with this, unless I had a massive sense of grievance, and a district judge may well be sympathetic to the airline, or may not be sympathetic. Given it's 4 minutes over, and assuming BA handled it as well as they could I'd let it rest, but you are liberty to take it further if you are so minded.

If this came up 3 years ago I doubt an English court would have found in your favour. Now I'm not so sure.
I would question the premise that one should cut and calculate whether X minutes are attributable to this, that or the other. IMO, the test is a simple but for-type test: would the passenger have arrived within the set time but for the delay to the incoming aircraft? Since the answer to this is "yes", then compensation is due. IMO, it is no different to the aircraft missing its departure slot and then having to wait a very long time due to congestion: this would not exculpate the airline, imo. But I do agree that this is not a slam dunk either way.
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Old Mar 18, 2016, 4:19 pm
  #234  
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I read it as: inbound was delayed and flight boarded 2:20 late. Then a passenger got sick and the captain decided he needed to be offloaded, resulting in the delay being pushed beyond the 3hr limit.
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Old Mar 18, 2016, 6:07 pm
  #235  
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Originally Posted by henkybaby
I read it as: inbound was delayed and flight boarded 2:20 late. Then a passenger got sick and the captain decided he needed to be offloaded, resulting in the delay being pushed beyond the 3hr limit.
Yes, that is how I read it too. My argument is different, namely that there is no salami slicing of the delay.
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Old Mar 19, 2016, 3:00 am
  #236  
 
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Originally Posted by henkybaby
I read it as: inbound was delayed and flight boarded 2:20 late. Then a passenger got sick and the captain decided he needed to be offloaded, resulting in the delay being pushed beyond the 3hr limit.
Yes, that is correct. I have no issue with the decision of the Captain to offload a sick passenger, rather that than a diversion to somewhere en-route.

Thank you CWS, I think I'm with you on this. Mrs.N is insistent that we claim, I'm just glad we got back and didn't spend 2 hours in Spain or Portugal for some poor unfortunate to be met by Paramedics.
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Old Mar 19, 2016, 9:59 am
  #237  
 
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Originally Posted by corporate-wage-slave
The initial posts at the top of the thread explain the situation for cancellations (which is not quite the same as delays) so with the specifics of your case you can work out whether you are due compensation. In terms of you rebooking your own travel - which does happen sometimes - then normally if you send in a complaint they will refund the cost - or just refund the original fare if that was the more expensive ticket, that's an easier process in a way. If you are not in a hurry then use the webform. If you need the money soon then ring up the customer relations number during UK office hours to resolve it more rapidly. In between those two extremes you can send in a webform, get the incident number and then use Twitter to highlight.
BA is currently claiming that I am not entitled to a refund on the flight which I had to rebook myself because, "I would like to inform you that when a flight is cancelled, we offer passengers the options to either rebook, reroute or a refund of their tickets. As you did not choose to be rebooked on an alternative flight, I am afraid we cannot contribute towards your alternative travel expenses."

This isn't satisfactory in my opinion and have emailed them back stating that I fully expect them to reimburse me for the cost I had to incur because their systems were down - I tried twice to rebook using customer services and was told that their systems were not letting them change my booking.

I have been offered a refund on the cancelled leg of my trip which is worth c. 150 and have been awarded the EC261 compensation so if I took the 150 I'd still be out of pocket!!

Any advice on how to take this forward?
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Old Mar 19, 2016, 11:19 am
  #238  
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Originally Posted by kmccallum13
This isn't satisfactory in my opinion and have emailed them back stating that I fully expect them to reimburse me for the cost I had to incur because their systems were down - I tried twice to rebook using customer services and was told that their systems were not letting them change my booking.
There's quite a lot of speed reading going on in BA, I suspect they either didn't understand that point or didn't read that far into your email. Perhaps invite them to listen to the tape of your discussions. If they were unable to rebook you then BA would be on very shaky ground in court, as I'm sure they will appreciate in due course. So persist a bit longer to begin with, then letter before action, then MCOL. In that respect, I suggest you call UK customer relations on Monday, during office hours, and discuss the matter with them. You could also try Twitter but I suspect this will defy the medium (plus the Twitter team don't handle EC261).

Note that you can either have a refund or the rebooking cost, which admittedly they're probably adverse to paying anyway, but not both. Plus EC261 if the relevant timelimits are exceeded.
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Old Mar 19, 2016, 1:00 pm
  #239  
 
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Originally Posted by corporate-wage-slave
There's quite a lot of speed reading going on in BA, I suspect they either didn't understand that point or didn't read that far into your email. Perhaps invite them to listen to the tape of your discussions. If they were unable to rebook you then BA would be on very shaky ground in court, as I'm sure they will appreciate in due course. So persist a bit longer to begin with, then letter before action, then MCOL. In that respect, I suggest you call UK customer relations on Monday, during office hours, and discuss the matter with them. You could also try Twitter but I suspect this will defy the medium (plus the Twitter team don't handle EC261).

Note that you can either have a refund or the rebooking cost, which admittedly they're probably adverse to paying anyway, but not both. Plus EC261 if the relevant timelimits are exceeded.
Thanks. Ec261 has been approved, it's the refund on my rebooked flight I need to get. Will persevere for a bit longer!!
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Old Mar 20, 2016, 6:35 am
  #240  
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My EC261 claim just submitted on-line in respect of http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/briti...t-service.html

The auto-repose from BA CS said, not surprisingly, "At the moment it’s taking us longer than we’d like to reply to all of our customers as we’ve received an unusually high amount of correspondence recently. If you can, please bear with us and we’ll contact you as soon as possible once we’ve looked into the issues you’ve raised." It will be interesting to see how long our 2 x €600 takes to materialise
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