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I don’t think a £300 voucher is a fair offer, especially if the seat doesn’t recline at all.

I’d also consider that WTP gets mainly the same catering, and that on most planes CW and WTP are 8 across.

I can’t see an order for costs being made with an mcol - I don’t know what value you would be awarded for the lack of flat seat, but it is likely to be something. It’s not a vexatious claim.

fransknorge

This is exactly because then the passenger could offload himself that attentions will be drawn to the problem, especially if he has checked luggage. That will involve the captain who might decide he prefer to have a delay due to an engineer fixing the seat rather than one due to finding someone bags.

Phlump

Thanks all for your comments and advice so far - it's greatly appreciated.

Let me reiterate, this is not (and has never been) about getting the most I can out of BA. If it had been, I probably would have taken the Avios points and worked out how to spend them ex-BA. This is about the principle of BA giving due and fair consideration to a customer's complaint, and of being unwilling to settle for less than I think I deserve. If I end up with nothing, or even if it costs me a small amount of money in legal costs, I'd be more satisfied with that, knowing that I haven't settled for an unreasonable offer.

It might even help others in the same situation in the future to know what their best course of action might be. From the conflicting views on this forum, that doesn't appear to be clear today. That would be a good outcome for me, too.

And I've thought about the media. It's certainly an option. But I'm an avid non-user of Twitter and Facebook. And my desire to pursue this point of principle is trumped by my desire never to have anything to do with the Daily Mail...

frenzie01

"BA then offered me any one of a £200 (or was it £300?) voucher, 30,000 Avios points, or an upgrade on my next BA flight."

This was a reasonable offer, considering that the upgrade is worth around £500-1000 when used cleverly.

Unfortunately you wanted more and this time you will probably end up with nothing.

Sometimes things don't work out the way they should, you should've taken their increased offer.

South London Bon Viveur

BA's final offer was hardly brilliant, but on balance (and clearly with hindsight) the OP should have taken it, but in any event BA should have made the increased offer at the outset, but instead they played silly buggers like they always do these days, with a p*ss taking £50 offer (which in many ways is worse than nothing). Which imbecile thinks that £50 is adequate service recovery for a non-reclining CW seat?

Greg66

But what, exactly, are the rights of a passenger who has asked to be deplaned due to a faulty seat? Are they going to be put on the next BA flight in their booked cabin, for free, or are they going to be told to buy a new ticket? And will the subsequent sectors of their original ticket be cancelled?

Deplaning oneself seems like a strong weapon for the passenger when the bags have been loaded and the doors are about to close, but I wonder where ultimately it leads. If BA's position is that a broken J seat is worth a fairly derisory and essentially ex gratia payment, why would they offer the deplaned passenger anything more than that, once said passenger is back in the terminal?

TabTraveller

The Convention creates a limited set of circumstances which gives rise to a claim. These are more specifically set out in chapter III of the Convention. Other than those specific rights, Art. 29 applies:

The reason I am very sure that a claim would not succeed (or, if it did, would be promptly overturned on appeal) is that it is settled law that the Convention extinguishes domestic legal rights. We have authorities up to the HoL and Supreme Court confirming this (see my previous post for a link). To give you an example of how this extensive this is, let’s say you were flying on AA from JFK to LHR and AA decided to bump you off the flight to a later flight solely because you happened to be black or disabled. You would have no claim against AA due to the Convention.

Whilst there is generally a more relaxed approach in the small claims track, this does not mean that a Deputy District Judge in Croydon gets to decide to ignore a treaty agreed between sovereign states which has been incorporated into English law.

UKtravelbear

The Guardian has both travel and legal columns which both deal with consumer related issues and they may be interested in your case.

TabTraveller

Rather than dealing in rights, I expect that the cabin crew, ground crew and flight crew would try to seek a practical resolution to the issue on the ground. If the seat can't be fixed then there are other BA services from CPT and via JNB, alongside the possibility of changing onto SAA (assuming BA has an interline agreement with them?) or VS. It is far easier to have your lawyer tell someone to bugger off and rely on the Montreal Convention than it is to deal with an unhappy passenger who is stood at the aircraft door and causing the flight to be delayed.

simons1

Why was it a reasonable offer? The OP says in the first post that he/she normally flies Emirates. That is a clue that being fobbed off with a BA travel voucher, or Avios, or an upgrade, is of limited interest.

Why would an occasional passenger accept such compensation encouraging them to fly again on an airline that has just treated him/her so badly.

I'm not sure whether you are connected to BA in some way but a valiant attempt to defend the indefensible for sure.

V10

Quite so - you'd have to successfully argue that you were involuntarily denied boarding, and quite probably take on the additional financial costs of having to arrange alternative transportation with no guarantee that those costs could be recovered. Not a desirable situation for many people, and probably not an option open to those who need to be somewhere without incurring additional delay.

I will continue to argue that existing legislation is weak in this area and it's still too easy for airlines to abuse it to their advantage.

Dave_C

You paid for a flat bed and did not get a flat bed. That is the defining characteristic of Club World.

What I still find astonishing is BA's refusal to apologise for a clear failing on their part and do what they can to make it right. Again and again threads like this pop up and it's so simple for BA to simply do what they can to fix things. However time and time again, they refuse.

What I find less astonishing is the brigade here that will defend BA whatever; even their most egregious mistakes. Ignore them - you didn't get what you paid for.

Often1

For the overwhelming majority of the traveling public, which likely includes CEDR arbitrators and lowest-tier judges who hear disputes arising through the MCOL process, Y (WT or whatever the bottom tier is for the preferred carrier) is the method of travel, with the premium cabins offering extraordinary luxury beyond their reach.

At the same time, the Montreal Convention (as well as the Warsaw Convention) were both intended to foster international air travel by, on the one hand assuring that consumers did not go home with a pittance and on the other, that some off-the-rails judge in a place far way, does not render a carrier insolvent through a rash judgment which can't be overturned.

It is clear that BA has drawn a line in the sand on seat defects. Just as OP notes that he is not out to bleed BA dry, BA won't be put in the position of being bled dry. If not the seat recline, then what happens if the hot towel is not hot enough? While we may all distinguish between those, there needs to be a legal principle which does and that is hard, especially for arbitrators & judges who see the whole concept of seat recline as "let them eat cake."

Put simply, OP's claim for the fare difference is unreasonable and while the arbitrator could have awarded less, the claim may have stuck in his craw. Same for MCOL. Some reasonable allocation of all of the benefits from the position of a reasonable passenger, not OP subjectively, is in order. I can't say whether the seat is 15, 20, or 25% of the fare difference, but somewhere in that range might be reasonable.

If he pursues MCOL remedies, I hope that OP considers that the nature of the claim, while not determinative of outcome, will ultimately be before a judge who likely flies in WT/Y or whatever the bottom tier class of service is.

While the arbitrator's determination is far from binding or precedential and even an MCOL decision is not that either, it is instructive to note that there is real risk in a determination, at some point, that the Montreal Convention preempts national law on basic consumer matters.

TabTraveller

I'm not sure who that was aimed at, but I am most certainly not defending BA's actions. As a matter of customer service BA should have offered reasonable compensation. Would I have accepted BA's offer of a confirmed upgrade or 30,000 avios? Probably.

You are of course quite right that the OP did not get what he paid for. However, for the reasons given above, this is not analogous with a claim against a hotel for not providing you with what was advertised. Domestic law, including contract law, does not apply during international air carriage.

corporate-wage-slave

That is precisely my area of challenge. The previous Cowden case related to a common law tort, on baggage, where Montréal has a lot to say. As a non lawyer, but someone very much involved in the political process, I can't believe things like the Consumer Rights Act 2015 - enacted many years after the Montréal Convention, are null and void for aviation, that certainly was not the intent of Parliament. Nor, incidentally does the CAA:

https://www.caa.co.uk/Commercial-ind...-for-airlines/

Now FT needs armchair lawyers even less than armchair CEOs, so I would be very happy to be corrected if my understanding is wrong.