Originally Posted by
patgarrett
My DUS-LHR flight on Saturday July 8 was delayed by over three hours and BA is denying my EC261 claim on the basis that it was during the strike and therefore an extraordinary circumstance. I'm aware that this is a MF route and they had to call in staff to operate the service, but they had plenty of notice and they proactively rearranged their services in advance. Do I have any recourse here?
Under the Regulation, I very much doubt it, unless you are going to really serious about it. The Regulation simply gives a blanket get-out clause for strikes, and BA could have fully cancelled the flight without compensation. Now there is an argument raised upthread that this could be interpreted that this clause does not fully fit the rider: "could not have been avoided even if all reasonable measures had been taken". In other words it can be argued BA could take more reasonable measures, ranging from rebooking to alternative services (at one extreme) through to settling the dispute with MF (at the other). However I would see that as an argument that would be heading to appeal court level to be relevant. An individual judge may take their own view, but that wouldn't prove much. Either way, and to answer your question, any recourse would be external to BA and is not certain of success.