Originally Posted by
squeeler
I can understand that the control tower fire alarm was 'extraordinary circumstances' but the subsequent failure to get us on our way was surely BA's responsibility?
The fire / diversion will be extraordinary circumstances. The Amadeus failure may not be directly BA's fault, and they may claim extraordinary circumstances, however that won't stand up to challenge either in MCOL or CEDR since BA is responsible for its suppliers - there is legal precedent and rulings covering this area.
In terms of your experience, there is a separate set of rulings that even if there are experience extraordinary circumstances, airlines are still responsible for the timely resolution of problems. Now you would have to give a bit of a margin here, since even if the processes were slick it would take a bit of time to get back to normal, so you'll have to make a judgement call on what would have been reasonable time to refuel, requeue for the stack and so on.
So you have two lines of approach there, but I would expect an initial rejection.