Originally Posted by
philyerboots
Hi Guys
I have recently had a claim rejected by BA for a flight I took from Manchester to Heathrow on 11th December 2017.
And I need to add my welcome to you
philyerboots, I hope that we will see more of you elsewhere in the BA forum and indeed Flyertalk.
I suspect this is going to be fairly similar to the Beast related posts just upthread. BA I suspect will have made a blanket decision not to pay up for delays which were weather related during this timeframe, even if the precise background is at a bit of a tangent. So the only way you're going to get anywhere with this is if you are prepared to take action externally, and probably MCOL rather than CEDR (small claims court rather than the dispute resolution service). CEDR is unlikely to charge you, but aren't known for being on the passenger's side. You have two factors that will count against you, and possibly one in your favour. Manchester is an out-station, so they can't magic up crews and aircraft there very easily. If you had started in LHR you may have a better case. Secondly MAN-LHR is a BA monopoly so you can't look at other airines' services that day to judge how well BA handled this.
On the other hand I do find it strange that BA could not route you via other airlines to minimise your delay. This isn't a formal requirement of EC261 but there is a more general requirement that BA needs to ensure that "all reasonable measures had been taken" and I struggle to believe that forced a 24 hour delay. I haven't researched this but I'm sure BA could have got you to MRS, NCE or LYS sooner than 24 hours late, using alternative airlines if necessary. Now after the event BA will have hold the best cards, but if you are able to construct a case which shows BA did not take all reasonable measures, then it becomes (in MCOL) BA's responsibility to prove that to a judge. Now I don't want to give you a lot of hope here, but that would be my analysis.