Originally Posted by
woodards
We where flying on BA2168 last week from FLL (14th May 16:55) and where delayed 24 hours due to the inbound flight being diverted to MCO due to severe thunder storm in FLL area. From my perspective there are a couple of justifications to make a claim - weather like this is not particularly exceptional for South Florida and the flight impacted by weather was not our flight (BA2169 actually landed MCO at approximately 14:00 on 14th). Extent of delay wasn't actually announced until 20:00 citing that the plane had not yet departed MCO and was unlikely to until the early hours of the 15th. By which point all alternatives i.e. via MIA had departed for UK.
I think you are going to struggle on this one. I'm fairly certain BA will not pay up unless a court or CEDR tells them to do so, citing extraordinary circumstances / "meteorological conditions incompatible with the operation of the flight concerned". And I'd also be surprised if CEDR were supportive. So by all means send it through the BA webform listed upthread to go through the necessary steps, but the decision you have to make is whether you would be prepared to take it through the court system yourself.
If you do take it to MCOL then yes you may have some grounds which may attract the sympathy of a judge, so weather not being so unusual, that it wasn't directly "the flight concerned", and that perhaps BA could have done more to mitigate the problem by coaching people the relatively short distance to MIA. I am still not that optimistic - one judge may give you the benefit of the doubt, the other may be persuaded by BA's arguments. So this is in expectations management essentially.