Yesterday, my flight was delayed for over 4h30 due to a mechanical issue. The plane left, leisurely taxied, stopped, taxied, stopped for about 40 minutes until the first officer made an announcement that a fault had been detected, took us back to the gate, kept us onboard, and finally, after I pointed out to the crew that the app now showed a departure more than 2 hours later, let us all off at the B gates (asking us not to go elsewhere in the terminal) where small vouchers were handed to passengers not eligible for lounge access..

It is a very straightforward case of EC261. The delay largely exceeds the required 3 hours for the distance, it was due to a mechanical fault, which is a 'black and white' case of airline responsibility for the purposes of the regulation. BA did what it had to in terms of duty of care if minimally so (no vouchers for C pax and Y pax apparently got £10, which won't get you a huge amount for a 4h30 delay. Onboard bar was open but paid for for those who wanted to get something whilst stuck onboard, except just before deboarding (well over 2 hours after ETD, when glasses of water were finally handed out.) so no issue there. However, they certainly did not make any effort to alert passengers with regards to their compensation rights. Now, I know the drill, BA will explain that the information is available on their website, and information might have been available at check in counters, but entitlement to compensation was certainly not mentioned in any of the announcements made, nor visible at the gate where we reboarded, nor mentioned on that occasion when boarding was called, nor during any of the crew messages detailing the delay. I happen to think that this is probably not really the spirit of the law, and that where the regulation mentions a duty of information, what the legislator intended was probably that in a case like this, an airline would actually tell the passengers that due to the length and nature of the delay, they would be eligble for compensation and how to claim it.

Either way, it is clear that the vast majority of people on the flight had no clue whatsoever about that, and I have no doubt that most of them will miss out on the compensation rightly owed to them. Hence my question: what do you do then? Do you step in for the airline, and tell as many people as possible that they should claim because quite frankly, that is their right and it seems unfair that airlines count on customers' ignorance to lower their regulatory bill? Or do you shut up because this is none of your business and you are not there to sort out the world?

However silly it might seem, this felt like a genuine ethical dilemma to me (and since the BA forum seems to be keen on ethical dilemma threads at the moment, I thought I might as well add another one! . ) I did not create a placard or play revolutionary leader by shouting to people about their rights. However, I did specifically mention it to the one girl of 15 or so who was travelling on her own on the other side of the aisle and seemed pretty panicked and whom I thought would have no chance of knowing her rights otherwise, and to the elderly couple sat behind us who asked me if I thought that BA would pay for a taxi as it would be too late for their son to pick them up when we'd finally arrive. So I wonder how many of you good people would have told as many people as possible, said nothing and felt grateful that they know themselves, or like me gone for some hardly logical "in between" scenario of just telling specific people either because they befriended them onboard or because they "seemed" particularly vulnerable and ill-equipped to know otherwise, however impressionistic that assessment may be?