Originally Posted by
corporate-wage-slave
I can't see many successful cases for EC261 arising from weather related delays during the last week or so. You may get somewhere if you are able to demonstrate some technical issue was also involved, and the other approach would be that at LHR BA should have enough resources to cope, however if it got to court BA wouldn't have to try very hard to point out some of the operating difficulties they had. If you feel like taking it further then if you go CEDR you don't have much to lose, but I think that would be even less likely to be a productive use of your time.
Thanks for responding. I did detail a lot of what happened on March 1.
So here goes:
- The aircraft was operated by an Airbus A380, registration G-XLEF
- The flight was 4 hours and 50 minutes late from the scheduled original arrival time to the "doors opening" time in Hong Kong which is used to calculate the final delay.
- The delay is attributed to the outbound aircraft arriving late from Los Angeles. Not a weather delay.
The main points:
- The delay was an operational delay caused by the late turnaround of the Airbus A380 aircraft G-XLEF from London Heathrow-Los Angeles-London Heathrow service on February 28. Weather was the cause of the delay for London Heathrow-Los Angeles. Operational delay, not a weather delay, was the issue for the London Heathrow-Hong Kong service as BA268 arrived late from Los Angeles (approx. 7.30pm instead of 3.25pm)
- Delay to the BA31 service increased as the scheduled departure time of 18:25 moved to 22:10, then revised down initially to 21:50, then 22:45 and 23:30.
- BA ground staff announced at the gate, the aircraft’s late arrival from Hong Los Angeles, then exacerbated by slow cleaning, catering and engineering, which accounts for the rolling delays.
- Weather was still not a direct factor in the delays to the London Heathrow-Hong Kong service as the aircraft concerned did not require de-icing post-pushback.
- Ultimately, it was a BA decision to roster G-XLEF to Hong Kong and therefore induce a delay on the service. Flights from Los Angeles do not always go on to operate the Hong Kong flight, too. Sometimes flights from Johannesburg may operate the BA31 service, for example.
- In fact, G-XLEF: prior to its Los Angeles scheduled service at 15:30 on February 28, 2018, the aircraft had landed from Hong Kong around 04:35 earlier in the day and was on-the-ground for an extended period of the day itself. It took off for LAX at 8pm.
- Similarly, (and in the real world ops planning is a very complex beast), G-XLEI which took off to JNB the same evening, March 1, scheduled at 9.10pm had been on the ground at LHR since Feb 26. JNB appears to be more suitable for the LAX post-rotation than the HKG one.
- On the day of the Hong Kong BA31 service, 25 per cent of Heathrow departure and arrivals were cancelled. The reduction of services was designed exactly to prevent weather-related disruption and delays.
- The BA27 London Heathrow-Hong Kong service on the same day (and which takes off later than BA31) did not manage the same lengthy delays and managed to arrive into Hong Kong close to its scheduled arrival time.
Therefore, I argue, BA was within its control to better manage the delays.