I'd also be very interested to hear the outcome of any similar compensation claims that were initially refused on the basis of a technical fault meeting the criteria for "extraordinary circumstances". Mrs Rotorhead has just had one of these e-mails from BA stating
"Your claim for compensation has been refused because flight BA0256 on 13 December 2013 was delayed due to unexpected flight safety shortcoming, which prevented the aircraft operating as scheduled. Under EU legislation, British Airways is not liable for a compensation payment in this situation.
During our final safety checks, we noticed a fault with the engine. As the engine had been maintained in accordance with the manufacturers guidelines, this constitutes as extraordinary circumstances and could not have been avoided."
In this case, in addition to the underlying question regarding extraordinary circumstances, there is the fact that the fault was not noted during the checks for BA256 i.e. in Delhi, but at LHR prior to the outbound BA257 and it then took over 20 hours to find a replacement/fix the fault. As a result the inbound 256 departed DEL at around 08.00 on 14th, not 12.30 on 13th.
We'll continue to argue as per the suggestions above (and post back the results) but any other thoughts on this and the validity of the claim (especially related to the time taken to find a replacement) would be welcome. We are of course also claiming expenses related to the additional night in the hotel etc.
Thanks in advance.......