V10

How on earth did they expect to get away with that response? Not having a crew available is something that is *entirely* within their control.

Having had a flight cancelled on the morning of departure with the same lack of crew availability given as the reason, I can only remain flabbergasted that - at its main base - BA seemingly does not have sufficient contingency in place.

greenman62113

Hi V10. Think it was my fault for being too polite and just sending a general enquiry rather than making reference to EU261. With the help of this forum I was soon pointed in the right direction.

Tafflyer

This is almost willful denial of passengers rights. greenman62113 did BA actually ever inform you of your rights when telling you the flight was cancelled in the first place? They are legeally bound to do so. If they did not, you should complain to the CAA as the responsible body in the UK.

BA not informing and not respecting peoples rights under EU261 is just as bad as those going out of their way to get compensation for anything.

I thought only Lufthansa was that bad.

V10

Fair play in that you didn't put up with being fobbed off. In your case BA appears to have been naughty by not informing you of your rights under EU261 in the first place.

Makes you wonder how much airlines do get away with it when those affected aren't similarly informed.

Noting that this originally appeared in the now archived 2013 compensation thread, I shouldn't derail this thread further.

greenman62113

First response was as above with no reference to legal right of claim. Seems like the onus is on the customer. When contacting BA there is a drop down box with various options one of which is EU cancellation/delay claim but if you are not aware of this you are none the wiser. Thanks to sites like this the information and help is available.

V10

Thanks mods for moving the most recent posts to somewhere more appropriate.

As alluded to by Tafflyer, airlines are obligated to inform passengers of their rights and the onus should not be on passengers to find this out. By all means leave it to passengers to decide if they wish to pursue a claim or not, but at least don't leave them completely in the dark about it.

Given the status quo I can't help thinking that airlines need further "persuasion" to up their game in this area.

BA6501

A hypothetical question:

Last flight on a Saturday ORY-LHR, connecting to the last LHR-MAN with a 75 minute connection. WHile this should be fine in principle, we all know that shorthaul punctuality goes down the drain as we get later in the day. If I were to miss the connection, would BA rather put me in a LHR hotel, or pay for a return HEX ticket and taxi to/from my London home (about £12 each way)?

If the missed connection actually occurs, where would the options get sorted? Flight connections desk before security? Never connected in London!

Thanks

stifle

No idea what BA would prefer to do, but you can either sort yourself out at the flight connections desk as you suggest, or land yourself and go to area E on the departures floor.

BA6501

Thanks. I assume I should try going through though before going to the flight connections desk (unless BA1404 has already departed!)

Offshore1

I wonder if anyone has yet had a response from BA when making an EU261/2004 claim in respect of the 24 hr delay resulting from the cancellation of this flight.
I wrote to BA making my claim which I know was received by them at the Sudbury address on 29 Dec. Heard nothing so I contacted BA via their website two weeks ago. Heard nothing except an acknowledgement giving me a reference number. They haven't even come back with their usual "extraordinary circumstances" get out.
I'm minded to give them a couple of weeks and then send a LBA. Any other tactics I should be trying to chivvy them along?

corporate-wage-slave

Probably easier just to give them a call and ask them when they are going to reply. From another thread it appears that some customer service issues are currently taking 2 months to get replies. It's difficult to argue it's urgent, annoying though it probably is.

zanderblue

My son was travelling yesterday, ABZ to MEL on the 1315 connecting to 015. Connection time of 65 minutes on the timetable.
Aberdeen flight arrived at Lhr a couple of minutes late, the aircraft then went to a remote stand and they waited 25 minutes plus, for stairs and buses. When he got into the terminal and to flight connections he was turned away and sent to ticketing and told he'd been offloaded and rebooked on same flights 24 hours later. He was also told that his baggage had made the flight and that it would be waiting for him in SYD.
BA have shown duty of care and given him hotel and food.
He's had a look online overnight and can see various other options to get him to his destination much earlier, so is now back at airport trying to get something more suitable.
Anyone care to comment on whether this delay is likely to qualify for eu261 compensation?

Steve Oh

I think a lot depends on the reason the flight was delayed, why it had to go to a remote stand and why it took so long to get the stairs to it.

corporate-wage-slave

If the flight got to T5 with less than an hour to spare, or your son got to domestic conformance with less than 35 minutes before departure, then indeed it depends on the cause of the delay / stand usage. If it is weather, ATC or imposed by HAL then BA probaby have a get-out clause. Get screen shots now of the relevant data from ba.com and flightstats.com

If doors opening at T5 was over an hour before departure then I am not sure BA does have that get out clause, there were reasonable things they should have done to have prevented the irrops, and the fact that the bags made the flight (which should never have happened) is a strong pointer in favour of this. Furthermore, and this is more of an opinion than legal fact, my personal view is that if the delay could have been dramatically shortened by re-routing on another service then BA should be held to account for that.

However I bet you will have quite a fight on your hand to get this.

zanderblue

Thanks CWS
Looking at websites it is stating that 1315 was at gate at 2148. 015 was scheduled for 2155, so indeed more than hour before. He sent me an SMS at 2121 saying he was getting on bus, so in reality he had missed connection before getting off aircraft.

As you say, I suspect he failed conformance. Looked to be a very busy flight, So I guess no shows would have been welcomed.

He got back to airport this morning and is now enroute with Cathay via AMS and HKG, his overall delay is now reduced to c 12 hours. The agent this morning told him his bag did not go on flight and has been reroute same as him.