Originally Posted by
TabTraveller
As a fellow (non-armchair) lawyer, I'd really encourage you to read the precedents around the Convention. There undoubtedly is a breach of contract, but any such claim is specifically precluded by the Convention. A good recent summary of the relevant cases can be found in
Chaing v Air Canada which I linked to earlier.
The judgement you linked to here is very interesting, albeit in the County Court.
It seems to carefully consider the implications of Stott v Thomas Cook (and myriad others) to draw a distinction between a claim for distress and a claim for partial non-performance - the first being 'inside' the scope of the Convention (with no remedy) and the second being 'outwith' the scope of the Convention (allowing domestic law to apply in the second instance).
As presented, the OP's claim seems to be a 'distress' claim firmly in the scope of the Montreal Convention (due to it being a request for compensation for a problem that occured onboard that does not involve misrepresentation). If true, the airline is explicitly absovled of any liability at all to the passenger.
No consequent, measurable financial loss is reported to have occured as a result of the malfunctioning seat, so it doesn't seem that a 'non performance' claim exists.
Pure conjecture on my part, but if the OP had suffered the cost of a day off work in order that they can sleep, caused directly by BA not providing it's contracted
"spacious seat, which converts into a fully flat bed", that might be interpreted as a non performance claim that might be considered using domestic law. However, the Air Canada case apears to relate to denied carriage after boarding on the inbound portion of a return flight - non-performance was
much clearer cut. Extrapolating that to a malfunctioning seat might need a good (expensive) lawyer!
The Convention and its interpretation does a very good job of absolving the airlines of any legal liability for most anything that occurs between boarding and airbridge that doesn't cause delay, bodily injury, death, or damage to belongings.