A friend was scheduled to fly to London on BA, connecting to Aer Lingus. Just before leaving home, BA called to say that their flight to London was cancelled. That meant that he would miss his connection on Aer Lingus.

BA said that they would offer no compensation for the cancelled flight or for the missed connection! I thought that the whole point of the airline alliances is to allow for a seemless transfer of passengers between partners. This is certainly NOT the case.

Does he have any options? Is he standing on shaky ground?