The silly thing about that is my 24/5/13 claim (which was eventually settled) could have been settled much sooner by BA with a decent Avios offer. I am not a fan of EU compo because it is disproportionate as it gives more £ than people have paid for the flight in some cases. For what happened on 24/5/13 I did feel I deserved something as it was entirely of BAs doing.

There should be an option for people to sign away their right to EU compo if they get a quick offer they are happy with. The airline and customer will both be happy and the issue goes away. I know it's unlikely, but just my view.

I do have some sympathies with airlines here.

Fair enough ... but two points:

- The EU regulated compensation is supposed to be punitive, and

- It is supposed to be paid in addition to any other compensation/care provided.

Sure, more than happy to give some background information. Was originally booked on BA0708 last Sunday, however, around 90 minutes before the departure the flight was cancelled due to the flight crew rostered to operate the flight being unavailable following the adverse weather. Due to high winds and resulting Air Traffic control restrictions, many of BA'S crews and aircrafts were out of position, which meant all standby crew and aircraft had already been utilised.

Customer Service in the Concorde Room put us on the waitlist for the later Zurich flight in the evening as other rebooking options (via e.g. Hannover with BA & LX) didn't work out; HAL wasn't making an exception for leaving airside T5 between full hours. Unfortunately the waitlist didn't clear in Club Europe due to heavily overbooking of the flight in general. At the last minute we were given the option to fly, however, in Euro Traveller only. We accepted, but as the evening flight taken (BA0720) was delayed too (time of arrival in Zurich was 10:29 pm) and therefore putting the delay over the crucial 2h mark, regulation 261/2004 kicked in.

The flight was part of my CPT-trip and based on various service issues (see reply in another thread) I sent an Email to customer services; they got back to me within days and also acknowledged proactively the cancellation respectively compensation part.

Thank you very much for your thoughts about cash vs. avios, I think I'll offer the avios option to them and ask for 25k. Let's see how it works out, will keep you updated.

Here's a new one for me – denial of compensation based on a mechanical failure on the engine starter.

This was a 24 hour delay to a flight from LHR-CPT.

4hrs30 mins delay? should I ask for compensation?
 

Flying to GVA a few days ago. Flight was late by 4.17 mins. Weather was windy and there were a couple of other delayed flights but nowhere close (2 other flights scheduled later also to GVA on similar A319 planes made it earlier).

Any chance or BA can claim bad weather?

Also it was a miles redemption so am I entitled anyhow?

The reason I am a little pissed is that I saw the delay early in the morning and as I was travelling with a baby I asked if I could come later (and take the risk of missing the flight) but the BA agent told me they wouldn't check my bags if I came later than the 45 mins before schedule time thereby forcing me to spend 4 hours in the airport. I wish delays were handled a bit better.

Whether you should claim compensation or not is entirely up to you. If I found myself in a similar situation then I would claim compensation if there was something I felt I should be compensated for. I don't think I'd waste my time asking a bunch of strangers on an interweb forum. Is there something you feel you should be compensated for? If so then go ahead and claim.

Do you know why the flight was delayed?
What did BA do to look after you both during the delay?
I guess you waited out the delay in the First lounge?

Isn't the whole point of flyertalk to allow people to ask advice and to discuss various flight and travel related topics???

Anyway, OP, you are entitled to EU compensation if your flight ARRIVED more than 3 hours late in Geneva AND the delay was within BA's control. What was the reason BA gave for the delay? If the delay was weather then it would be regarded as out of BA's control and you would likely would not be eligible for compensation. How you paid for the flight(miles) would not affect your eligibility for EU compensation.

Yes flight landed with 4.30 mins delay into Geneva. BA said it was due to windy conditions, bu thence my question. Yes there have been storms in the UK and delays and hence some of the delay was. def. out of BA's control but as I said most flights were 15 to 30 mins late. Ours was 4hours and 30 mins, so not sure how EU compensation can be understood in that context.

I was on BA 730, both BA 732 and BA 734 which were scheduled hours later landed before us.

You can't say just because the later flights weren't delayed that yours shouldn't have been. I've seen the weather going from a howling gale to being flat calm within the space of minutes.
If BA said it was due to weather then I would say you already know the answer to your compensation question. If you don't believe them you could of course go down the fashionable route of taking them to the small claims court.....you'll get plenty of advice on that on here. ;)

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This seems outrageous. Have you gotten the complaint escalated?

Miles (Avios?) redemptions are covered by the Regulations, unless the ticket was completely and totally free, e.g. won in a free to enter competition.

The wind has in recent weeks caused a lot of difficulties to schedules, and depending on the precise conditions it probably does fall into extraordinary circumstances. So without knowing the details it may be a case of accepting that bad weather in February isn't great for flying. The checked luggage advice was broadly correct in the abstract, but actually I bet you probably could have got away with arriving later, I cannot believe they would have locked down the flight for 4 hours. Again in times of disruption, going without checked luggage makes life so much easier.

Hi,

I am looking for advice regarding a flight that was cancelled by BA two weeks ago.
Many flights from London were cancelled on Feb 13-14 because of the storm. I was due to fly from LHR to Luxembourg on Saturday 15. The weather was calm and beautiful, but I got a text at 6 am saying that my flight was cancelled.

After 45 (!) minutes trying to get hold of someone on the phone (not free), I was told that they couldn't rebook me on any flight on the day, or even in the next two days, and that I would have to request a refund from my travel agent, which I did.
I had to travel on that day so I rebooked a £200 Easyjet flight from LGW, and e-mailed BA to ask for compensation. They have offered 5000 avios, with this response:

"As there was a delay, the crew on your aircraft didn’t have enough time left to complete the journey within their scheduled hours. This meant we had to cancel the flight because another crew wasn’t available to operate it"

Aren't they supposed to have reserve crew? Does that sound like a reasonable compensation?

Many thanks for your help :)

Welcome to FlyerTalk!

While having reserve crew around is usually a reasonable precaution, it might not have prevented the cancellation in these extraordinary circumstances due to the extreme weather.

Perhaps you should consider writing back explicitly quoting EC 261/2004 and see what they say.

Welcome to FlyerTalk!

While having reserve crew around is usually a reasonable precaution, it might not have prevented the cancellation in these extraordinary circumstances due to the extreme weather.

Perhaps you should consider writing back explicitly quoting EC 261/2004 and see what they say.