Astir 8

Hi guys

this saga has been running for a while on PPRUNE (passengers and SLF) but I've been told
that more people will get to read it on Flyertalk, so here goes.

My wife had a British Airways booking to go to her sister's wedding.

8th August Glasgow - London City 1900
9th August Heathrow - Gibraltar 0800
11th August Gibraltar - Heathrow 1440
11th August Heathrow - Glasgow 1750

She got to Glasgow outbound and discovered that BA had cancelled the London City flight. She was involuntarily rerouted to Heathrow on a much later flight but she caught the flight to Gibraltar on 8th as scheduled.

On arriving at check-in at Gibraltar for the return flight the BA representatives told her that she had been a “no show” on one of her outbound legs and that her return tickets had therefore been cancelled (BA gets to keep the money of course!)

Despite vehement protestations that she hadn’t been a no show, the BA reps made absolutely no attempt to check her outbound flights and told her that she’d have to pay about £800 for a flight home via Malaga the following day. She was upset to put it mildly. The Gib BA staff simply kept repeating “no show, no show”

She fortunately got flights later that day back to Glasgow on Easyjet, which cost her £432. I had to drive 135 miles to Glasgow to pick her up as by then she’d missed the last train home.

This was naturally queried with BA who admitted that Glasgow BA had failed to “protect” her ticket after her initial involuntary rerouting and that as a result she had been erroneously classed as a “no show” and her tickets cancelled. Something which the Gibraltar staff could easily have established long before her flight was due to depart. I strongly suspect that her scheduled Gib – LHR flight was full as she wasn’t offered even the opportunity to buy another ticket for it.

We claimed reimbursement from BA for the Easyjet flight (£432) plus £121.50 (270 miles a 45 pence/mile) plus one meal (£8.50) plus car parking at Glasgow (£6.50) total £573.25.

We also requested the statutory (EU 261) “denied boarding” compensation of 400 Euros, which seemed fair enough for the upset, stress etc caused to my wife.

BA offered to reimburse the Easyjet cost plus a £50 “contribution” to my car costs. They also offered a £250 discount voucher (with a 12 month life) off her next BA flight.

BA’s “Customer Relations” departments exact words were:-

“I appreciate that you feel that you were denied boarding in Gibraltar, however this was not in fact the case. Due to an error at Glasgow your return ticket was cancelled by mistake. This meant that your ticket wasn’t valid for travel from Gibraltar. I do not underestimate your inconvenience but unfortunately this is not a situation where we would offer denied boarding compensation”

My wife isn’t planning any trips on which she could use a £250 voucher in the next 12 months, so that’s pretty worthless. Ongoing correspondence has so far failed to achieve an agreement and I can see us ending up taking legal action. What BA will do to save a few quid!

dera

It was a clear case of denied boarding:

"(j) "denied boarding" means a refusal to carry passengers on a flight, although they have presented themselves for boarding under the conditions laid down in Article 3(2), except where there are reasonable grounds to deny them boarding, such as reasons of health, safety or security, or inadequate travel documentation;

Your wife had presented herself for boarding under the conditions laid down in Article 3(2), which says:

a) have a confirmed reservation on the flight concerned and, except in the case of cancellation referred to in Article 5, present themselves for check-in,

- as stipulated and at the time indicated in advance and in writing (including by electronic means) by the air carrier, the tour operator or an authorised travel agent,

or, if no time is indicated,

- not later than 45 minutes before the published departure time; or

(b) have been transferred by an air carrier or tour operator from the flight for which they held a reservation to another flight, irrespective of the reason.

She had a confirmed reservation, it was BA who cancelled the reservation, but that doesn't matter at all in this case.

So yes, I would say thats a denied boarding without a doubt.

Ancient Observer

If they have given their final offer, I would not hang about trying to negotiate - the individuals you are dealing with seldom have any freedom.

Issue a Court summons without delay. The directgov uk website makes it easy to do on line. fees guidance is on line. use a Court local to you.

Dave_C

I think they are playing the technical argument that you couldn't have been denied boarding as the ticket was cancelled, so there was no booking that you could have been denied on. I suppose it's correct, but pretty outrageous.

I'd write one more letter to them, give them seven days to refund your Easyjet flights, any out of pocket expenses incurred, plus whatever the EU 261/2004 denied boarding would have been. If they don't pay up, take out a small claim.

I've been down this very route when BA failed to pay up for an involuntary downgrade, and they paid up in the end before it got to court.

Astir 8

Wrong! Note

item a) "Have a confirmed booking on the flight"

BA had cancelled her ticket!

Also please see


http://www.pprune.org/passengers-slf...complaint.html

Tobias-UK

How did you pay for the original ticket?

sunrisegirl

My opinion - as a fare paying passenger - is not valid so deleted as the insults are distressing.

Raffles

Issue a court summons. Quite a few FT'ers have done this in the past, for various reasons - the last big one was when BA had to charter a few one-class planes and demoted CE pax to Economy with a flat £20 (I think) compensation.

BA ALWAYS settles before the court case is due. However, you will be forced to sign a confidentiality agreement so you will not be allowed to post on here what you have received, and you may even be banned from saying that you have reached a settlement. It is still worth doing, though.

dera

I believe a court would judge that BA had no right to cancel her booking, rendering it effectively into a denied boarding because she had a confirmed booking and according to the T&C's, her actions didnt give a reason to cancel it.

Rambuster

+1
Clearly the way to go.

henners

This doesn't hold water for me. If this defined what is reasonable, then all BA needed to do to avoid all payments under EC261 would be to arbitrarily de-confirm people they didn't have space for.

There was a confirmed booking, the passenger followed a reasonable course of action, obeyed what BA asked them to do, and BA declined to carry them on one of their flights. That it was down to BA de-confirming their booking through error doesn't seem relevant.

sunrisegirl

See above

mad_rich

Clearly BA are playing the technical argument as Dave_C says. Your wife may not have had a confirmed reservation, but the fact that this was due to a mistake by the GLA agent means she was de facto IDB'd.

Claim all your costs back (but, as sunrisegirl points out, 45p/ mile is pushing it. What was your actual fuel bill? How much would a taxi have cost?).

I think they should pay out. I can see why they might be squirming, but these regs are there to punish airlines for inconveniencing passengers. It may have been an honest mistake, but it could have been fixed in GIB.

If it were me, I would accept full reimbursement of my actual costs, and I'd be flexible as to the compo (miles/ vouchers/ cold hard cash).

ginger50

I can see SRGs view and if BA manage to hold sway then this would not be a case of denied boarding.

However, looking at this from the passenger's point of view, she was denied boarding because she did not know that her ticket had been cancelled.

Using the terms "if" and "then" once again therefore!....

If the passenger were to go to small claims then I suspect that she will either reach an out of court settlement with BA or the court will find in her favour.

IMHO, with the facts presented as they are, I think that BA should have settled higher and quicker than this because one's instant reaction is that an injustice has been done. Since BA have clearly admitted fault and shown a willingness to settle, the extra mile they could have gone to avoid messy PR would have been a cheap and simple step. As it stands they have compounded the error by leaving the passenger (and anyone who reads the story) with an on-going sense of injustice. This does not put BA in a good light.

hillrider

I hope you understand how ludicrous it is what you're claiming. Next time I have oversales, I will cancel a few reservations by mistake, then claim to the customer that because they don't have a reservation they're not a denied boarding.

Bullocks to that.

The customer had a valid ticket and he/she never cancelled it; it's as clear as that. What happened within BA's system is none of the customer's concern; the fact that BA messed it up is bad enough without adding the injury of some contorted logic.