ben1991

Just hoping to get some advice on whether this delay would be captured by EU261.

Mum is in F on B213 today; just as they were boarding, they were asked to turn back as apparently something had collided with the plane at the gate (not too sure what). A replacement plane is being found and the departure time has been pushed back to 15.05, from it's originally scheduled time of 11.15.

Would this fall within the parameters of EU261, or would BA be reasonably able to claim the delay was outside of their control?

Thanks in advance!

FlyerTalker39574

BA and the ground operating company have a principal agent relationship, so extraordinary third party circumstances excuse would not be correct. When your Mum is back at the gate, if she has a smartphone, she could take some photos and make a note of the damaged aircraft's registration.

Estimated arrival is 17.32 at BOS.

corporate-wage-slave

I think we would need more details here. So this is BA213 to Boston, still at LHR, so they are able to substitute another aircraft. I doesn't look like it is going to arrive less than 3 hours late given the timings you have given.

If it was another BA aircraft or something like the baggage loading equipment for the aircraft then BA won't be able to claim extraordinary circumstances, and there are specific precedents that cover this second example. If a Virgin aircraft rear-ended the BA aircraft on the taxi-way - well we would probably have heard about that by now - but that would be an example of being extraordinary in my view.

ben1991

Thanks CWS! Appreciate the advice.

Quick update: it appears as though "a ladder hit one of the engines."

corporate-wage-slave

That would sound to me to be a contractor or BA Engineering, and both wouldn't be extraordinary unless there was more to it than this.

rapidex

The relevant time for EU261 is doors open at destination,not departure time.

ben1991

Ahh of course, completely escaped my mind!

Incidentally the flight still hasn't departed... Seems like everyone was called to the gate, only to be told boarding would be delayed by another hour as no catering had been loaded @:-)

rapidex

Sounds like you may be in then.^

kaka

day 15 on CEDR and BA offered 600eur/person
finally. A 180degree twist from the last few correspondence.

xenole

Not sure if this is fine here or in a more dedicated thread.

Got bored last week not haveing heard anything beyond the initial acknowledgement email for my claim for the 27th May.
Got a response with the usual "sorry, you're a GGL member etc." and it looks like I'm getting the €250 compensation for my short flight. The email also went on about a refund for some travel costs (that were initially rejected) and a refund for my flights (already had that but would be nice if they would do it twice....at least until they notice).

botham

I just discovered that my TA, Gotogate, hasn't even approached BA for authority to refund outbound flights. They quoted me 4-8 weeks, which expires end of August.

I know who I'll never use again!

max_bos

Hello,

I would appreciate your advice on getting EU216 compensation from BA due to the cancelation of flight from BA215 from LHR to BOS on July 8 (it was our flight home at the end of a European vacation).

The four of us were scheduled to fly from London to Boston on July 8 in J class (T fare upgraded with miles). My wife has Gold status with BA, and kids and I have Bronze status. We were informed of the cancelation on July 6 by e-mail. I logged into MMB, and saw that they moved us to the BA 213 departing on July 7. Since we would still be outside of the UK on the 7th, I called the Gold line and asked for an alternative flight. The agent offered a few options on the 9th and 10th, and all of them included downgrades and our group being split up between several flights. I asked if they could route us via JFK, and he said 'yes' - there was availability in J on BA117 for all four of us on July 9th. They also (reluctantly) put us on AA flight with a BA codeshare from JFK to BOS. I then asked whether BA would provide a hotel for us at LHR. The answer was a firm 'No'. I was told to book the hotel myself and submit our expenses later. I then asked if there was any guidance from BA on how much they would cover, and was told that they could not provide any guidance.

Once I saw how expensive hotel rooms were at LHR for July 8th, I asked my wife to call the Gold line again and ask how much they would cover. The agent put my wife on hold for 10 minutes and supposedly spoke to Customer Relations. In the end, my wife got the same answer as I did: no guidance from BA, book your own rooms and submit your expenses. We ended up booking two rooms at the Sofitel on Hotwire for $796. This was the cheapest price for the Sofitel (other LHR hotels were over 300 GBP too), plus we did not want to stay further from T5 with our flight departing at 8:30 in the morning. BA's cancelations and delays surely drive up last-minute hotel prices at LHR!

Once we got home, we filed two claims with BA under the EU216 compensation rules: one for the cost of hotel and dinner, and the other for the 4x620 EUR compensation due to our arriving in Boston 22 hours after the scheduled arrival time.

BA took about 3 weeks to reply to the first claim. They were prepared to pay 400 GBP for the two hotel rooms and 87.50 GBP for dinner. I do not object to their not covering the full cost of dinner, but I think that BA had no right to impose the internal limit on how much of the hotel cost they would cover. They should have either arranged a hotel for us themselves (and we had given them that option), or covered the full cost. We never agreed to he terms of the settlement, but but did give BA our bank details. They transferred $631 to our account a week later.
I filed an travel insurance claim with Allianz for the remainder of the expenses (about $360). Allianz requested a 'common carrier statement of delay or cancelation', since they were not able get one themselves. It took BA a week to produce the document, but when they did, it said that the flight was cancelled 'for operational reasons'. This is relevant to our second claim with BA, and it may also give Allianz an excuse to deny our claim (they may say that the carrier was fully responsible).

BA never responded in writing to our second claim (4xEUR620 compensation). When my wife called Customer Relations on the phone, she was told that the claim was denied because the the cancellation occurred due to the industrial action, and thus outside of BA's control. My wife then asked whether they could respond to the claim saying that the decision was final, so that we could ask CEDR to rule on the case. They responded with the wrong case number (the first claim), and did not correct the issue after my wife replied to that e-mail. They just keep sending the same copy-and-paste 'We are sorry you are still unhappy' reply.

I am still planning to file a case with CEDR, and would appreciate your opinion on the following points I am planning to make:
1. Boston flights are not operated by the Mixed Crew, so BA should not be blaming the cancelation on the industrial action.
2. BA's own official letter stated that the flight was canceled for operational reasons.
3. CAA stated that the 'extraordinary circumstances' rule does not apply to an industrial action within the airline itself.
4. BA's own application for wet-leasing QR planes stated that they expected to be responsible for compensation under the EU216 rules.

Thank you,
max_bos

corporate-wage-slave

The £200 limit on hotel rooms is well known here, as you will see up thread and in some other threads in this forum. However this is a limit of BA's making with no legal status. Now the system fell over here, since you should have been told of the £200 limit when you rang up (you could have tried this forum incidentally) and that would have allowed you to consider other hotels since the Sofitel can be the most expensive hotel in the area. However that's largely irrelevant, since in fact the £200 has no legal status, and BA only puts up a token fight on that aspect when challenged:, I'm not aware (yet) of BA putting a substantive defence via MCOL or CEDR and in fact I would struggle to even work out what that defence would look like.

For the strike versus operations question for Article 7 compensation, there I have to be more circumspect, I just don't know how that will turn out. It's not a MF route and in fact very few BOS flights have been cancelled during this dispute too. On the other hand strikes are mentioned in the Regulation specifically. It could go either way. My guess is that BA may be prepared to defend this in CEDR (in which case it would be helpful if you kept this thread informed of the arguments used); my perception is that they would not pursue this in court unless it was rock solid.

max_bos

Thanks for the detailed information, c_w_s! I will definitely update this thread with the outcome of my dispute with BA.

kaka

also, be prepared ba would pull up reasons to admit fault at CEDR that seems like the original agent lied a bad time.
ive got one of those- makes me think if i should complain (tho i think they wont give me anything more than maybe 1000 miles)