Originally Posted by
Jenbel
But there are two meanings to the word 'connecting'. There is the one with the through ticket, and there is the casual use for anyone who gets off one plane and then gets on another at the same airport, regardless of what the ticket situation is. Given there is no further mention of the requirement for a through ticket in the blurb which spells out what classes you can fly in on, and the need for the outbound flight to also be oneworld, I'd say that's ambiguous rather than clear-cut.
BTW, hasn't the blurb changed? I thought there was some discussion recently about CE being removed from the list, leaving it as long-haul only
BA to BA ticket protection does actually apply in practice. In addition, the passengers may not have to pass out of LHR arrivals and back into LHR departures. They may use the Flight Connections Centre on two PNRs. You can be on two tickets with linked PNRs as sometimes the marvellous computers cannot issue tickets in the relevant crossfare buckets on the same PNR.
BA have stated quite often that you can buy any ticket you like on the web. We all know that this is absolute crap. Therefore, to avoid significant bad publicity when it turns to rodent manure, BA have to allow two separate bookings to be treated as one. BA are not a point to point airline and do allow through checking of luggage, cross checking of luggage within 1W and also on a multicarrier through ticket.
I think that the definition of connecting is 23:59 in the UK whereas in the US it is 4 hours. I do not see a reasonable argument for these flights not being considered as connections. The clear purpose of the transit through London Heathrow was to change aircraft whilst flying on British Airways.
Off to the QF inflight magazine to see if they still have those BA lounge dragon zappers for sale!