Originally Posted by mavml

Hi all.

I'd appreciate some advice on my compensation claim with BA for flight BA208 MIA-LHR on 14th April. Some background first:

- The flight arrived at LHR approx 4 hrs 30 mins late.
- The delay was advised by text message on the day of departure from MIA as due to "operational reasons" and due to the captain on board as due to a technical fault which was found just before departure of the outbound flight from LHR which required an aircraft substitution.
- I believe the original aircraft due to operate our flight was G-XLEA and it was actually operated by G-XLEF.

I put in my claim on the day of arrival back to the UK (I know now since reading this thread that claiming so early was a mistake, but hopefully it won't change the eventual outcome).

The first response from BA came about a week later and was a fairly standard response saying compensation was not payable due to aircraft damage which wasn't caused by BA.

I responded, quoting some of the court cases mentioned on here, and received a response a couple of days later with more detail, again saying they weren't liable in this event.

Due to the location and the nature of the damage, it was confirmed by the engineers that the damage was due to debris on a runway. The debris had been thrown up either during a landing or a take-off. On further inspection, the damage was found to be outside of the acceptable limits to operate, and it required further non-destructive testing to check for further hidden damage. It also was decided that these checks would take time and this was limited due to crew hours, so the decision was made to tow the aircraft and replace it with an alternative aircraft.

To me, they are still liable in this case on the basis that:

- Aircraft damage was incurred in normal course of operations.
- Damage took place at least 2 sectors prior to mine (BA don't know when), providing ample time to replace with an alternate aircraft. The fact that the damage was only found just before departure was entirely within BA's control and therefore regardless of the cause of the damage, they are still liable.

I wrote back, quoting para 14 / 15 of the EC261 text, and that I was not prepared to let the matter rest, and today (2 weeks later) received this response:

Thanks for writing back to us. I apologise for the delay in my response.

Article 5.3 of the EU Regulation 261/2004 states a carrier is not obliged to pay compensation if it can prove the delay or cancellation is caused by extraordinary circumstances, that couldn’t have been avoided even if all reasonable measures had been taken. In Recital 14 and 15 of EU Regulation 261/2004, extraordinary circumstances include weather, strikes, damage to aircraft not caused by the operating airline and the impact of an air traffic management decision which gives rise to a long delay. This means you’re not entitled to compensation under the EU Regulation for your delayed flight.

Thanks again for getting in touch with us. Please feel free to contact me directly by using the blue link below if I can help you with anything else.

It seems to me that BA have at their own liberty taken the text from paragraph 14 and replaced the reference to unexpected flight safety shortcomings with something which is not at all mentioned in the text. My initial reaction to this is that this is outright lying, thus I'm very much angered by this response, so whilst I calm down to provide a rational response, I thought I'd get some advice here:

- I can't find any court cases or advice online which deal with this specific circumstance (the closest being the collision of ground handling vehicles with aircraft), but does anyone disagree with my conclusions, or think that maybe compensation isn't payable here?

- What should my next steps be? Customer service invite me to make another response, but I just don't feel like I'm getting anywhere, and I really don't want to deal with this individual again (I know he's just doing his job of fobbing people off, what a demoralising role....). Should I just write to customer services instead threatening a legal approach, or can I ask for this to be referred elsewhere? I'm happy to take any reasonable path to reach a conclusion.

Thanks for any help, just reading this thread has been a goldmine of information, I think without it I wouldn't have had a clue what to do!