Originally Posted by
zerovector
TripIt sent me an alert that a flight from last year might be worth chasing for EU 261. They encouraged me to use their partner AirHelp.
It was BA 295 LHR-ORD on 30 July 2022. The delay was about 5 hours. After the flight I emailed BA but they said it was a lighting strike on the inbound aircraft and mandatory inspections had to be carried out.
We exchanged a few emails, but I haven't take any further steps. Should I? Is "lightning strike on inbound" a common catch all category or does that really absolve them from paying out?
Could someone with a premium subscription to Flightradar24 or Flightaware help me find out more information about the inbound, please?
If BA are saying a flight from LHR was delayed due to a lightning strike on the inbound plane, I would say that fails the "take all reasonable precautions" test – it's reasonable for an airline as big as BA with so many flights operating from LHR to have a small number of planes on standby to take up slack in circumstances where a plane has gone tech or is otherwise unserviceable.
I would have more sympathy for such a delay at an outstation.