Happy New Year everyone.

I have an update to the scenario I posted in late December. The last post in the chain is 2722 from last year's thread. (I split this into 3 claims with BA: UK261 compensation, downgrade reimbursement and ORC.) This was due to cancellation of BA212 from BOS-LHR on 23 Dec 23 which resulted in rerouting via MAD (IB6166 / IB3170) and unplanned nocturnal cardiovascular exercise through Barajas to make the tight connection.

Yesterday (the brevity suggested here must have helped expedite the processing time!) BA responded and offered me compensation, albeit 50% of £520 per passenger as we arrived within 4 hours of the scheduled arrival time. They did not take into consideration that we departed 1h50m earlier. They did offer to pay my expenses (including train tickets that could have been deemed consequential). The other two items (downgrade, ORC) have been redirected to various other departments and I'm still waiting to hear back on those.

As flarmip agreed in post 2720 of last year's thread, UK261 (Article 5, 1 (c) iii) states that compensation is due unless [passengers concerned] are informed of the cancellation less than seven days before the scheduled time of departure and are offered re-routing, allowing them to depart no more than one hour before the scheduled time of departure and to reach their final destination less than two hours after the scheduled time of arrival. We departed in this case by well over one hour early on the rerouted flight. Unhelpfully I don't see the departure time of rerouted flights referenced in Article 7 (Right to Compensation), only the arrival time which BA used to reduce the compensation payment, though flarmip referenced a legal precedent ("Azurair") in which the departure time of the rerouted flight was taken into consideration.

Since in my mind another £520 is worth pursuing if the correct interpretation of UK261 is that full compensation is due here, I have the following questions for this group:

--> Do most agree here that I have a leg to stand on in this situation? I found the press release from the CJEU which clearly states that reducing compensation is not allowed for early departures (21 Dec 2021, "Judgments in Joined Cases C-146/20, C-188/20, C-196/20 and C-270/20, Azurair and Others, in Case C-263/20, Airhelp, and in Case C-395/20, Corendon Airlines").

--> If yes, should I respond back to BA in the first instance? Is referencing the CJEU press release appropriate, or is this likely to cause BA to "freeze up" if I sound too legalistic?

Again appreciate all of the support here which has been very helpful so far.