Originally Posted by
corporate-wage-slave
EC261 wasn't written with current circumstances in mind, and to the best of my knowledge there isn't any senior appellate precedent that definitely confirms that you can insist on another airline in this scenario. The Regulation just says "earliest opportunity", which airlines believe means "earliest opportunity on one of our services", whereas many consumers would believe it should be "earliest opportunity on any flight". Until that gets tested at a senior court you can't really rely on this to help you, in my opinion. It's certainly worth a conversation with BA after cancellation to see if they can rig up some codeshare route through for you, but mentioning EC261 won't help.
I might have to test this. In unfortunate position of having a non-cancellable hotel and travel insurance (from very start of the year) that precludes losses due to pandemics / epidemics. And Montenegro is aiming to reopen soon I read. Any other datapoints on rerouting within Europe would be appreciated. Not due to travel until early July so hoping Hilton moves their cut-off point for free cancellation from 30 June...
I see from other threads that BA pulled the route from sale several weeks ago so they haven't exactly acted in good faith by delaying cancelling the flights.