corporate-wage-slave

Crikey, I know it's a 24 hour / 7 day a week operation, but that is fast!

stimpy

I had a 20+ hour delay due to BA gate ops, however BA is claiming that they are not responsible for ATC delays. I replied to them that this wasn't about an ATC delay. Indeed there was a 10 or 15 minute ATC delay, but when we arrived at the gate there way no one to meet us. When someone finally arrived about 15 minutes later they could not get the jetty to work. After another 20 minute the captain called "company" to get us deplaned by the rear of the aircraft. He was denied. Finally after sitting at the gate for over an hour they got the jetty to work and we deplaned. I ran to flight connections but was denied access as it was just a few minutes too late. BA put me up in an LHR hotel and on a flight the next morning to IAD.

The final response I received from customer relations is this...

Thanks for getting back in touch with us about your EU compensation claim. Please, accept my apology for the late reply. I understand this is something you feel strongly about and I’m sorry you’re unhappy with our previous replies.

We really want you to fly with us again and we know not resolving your complaint fully will affect the decisions you make when you need to travel in the future. I’ve had another look at your claim for compensation and I’ve taken time to make sure our response is accurate and up-to-date.

I’m afraid our decision hasn’t changed and the responses you’ve received about the eligibility of your EU compensation claim are correct. As Air Traffic Control restricted operations , we’re unable to offer you any compensation. I know this isn’t the answer you were hoping for and I’m sorry to let you down.

Given the information we hold about your delayed, our answer won’t change and we’re unable to respond to any further requests for compensation.

As a Gold member I've never had such a response from BA before as what they wrote in the last sentence. So I think I will go the small claims route unless someone here has alternative advice?

agehall

It's just disgusting how they treat claims tbh. A monkey could give better answers.

As they claim to hold information about the delay, they should provide it. If they refuse to do so, take 'em to court. (MCOL I guess is the first step)

I have yet to come into a position where I have to file a claim against BA, but when the time comes, I'll expect I have to take them all the way to get them to pay up.

DorsetKnob

I was rather surprised myself. The response went out of its way to be apologetic.

Just out of interest would the crew on my flight back on the 26th have known from their font of all knowledge iPad that I had been messed about 2 days earlier? They seemed particularly attentive.

Aldebaran

Based on my experience, an ATC delay is usually one of the easyest pretext for an airline to avoid an EU261 compensation. And in most of the cases it is very difficult for a passenger to challenge this excuse, unless he/she can access some official sources in order to contest what the airline declare. As an example, in the NM database are logged all the actions done on each single flight, all the actors involved (dispatchers, ops, ATC, etc.) and the exact time (hour, minute and second) of each action. This is in my opinion the most reliable and objective source to verify if the so called “ATC delay” is effectively an ATC delay and archives are available and quickly accessible also for the past years.
In your case the ATC delay (if any) could count not more than 10% of the total delay, and if you want to take them to court you can request to obtain the above mentioned official information . As a first step a download of your flight details from flighradar24 or fligthaware could help to have the exact take-off and landing time, unless you, like me, when flying routinely log the off block, take off, landing and block-in times.

corporate-wage-slave

Almost certainly a comment was placed on the iPad, a bad irrop is precisely the sort of thing that the staff tablets are supposed to flag up. It would be wrong to think that a lot of information gets to be visible to staff generally, but an exceptional event like yours would figure not just on the CSD's iPad but probably in the preflight briefing too.

corporate-wage-slave

After that letter your two options are:
- going via the CAA (or its French equivalent) but I rather doubt much would come out of that. The CAA is not only toothless but likes it that way and is woefully inadequate for its regulatory requirements.
- MCOL.

It is unusual to get a very firm letter like that unless BA felt they had a strong case. They do get it wrong, but rarely so. Without the facts, figures, times, it is very difficult to judge the wisdom of pursuing this. Suffice to say you'll have to prove that you missed your longhaul ONLY due to the ground staff's activities (reading between the lines here and making some possibly incorrect assumptions).

Having said that, you don't need to convince BA, or indeed FTers, merely the District Judge (in England and Wales).

stimpy

Thanks for the assist. Unfortunately those websites don't appear to go back to November so I guess I have no corroborating evidence. BA could have fudged the data in their own systems for all I know and customer relations only sees that it was an ATC delay in which case it's not their fault. But it is very clear to me that ATC has zero control or effect on attaching the jetty to the aircraft.

caz312

It is worth trying the flight number and date into one of the NWNF sites to see whether they agree with the extraordinary or whether they believe compensation is due. Try EUClaim or bottonline (although frustratingly you may get different answers from each!)

corporate-wage-slave

Many thanks to everyone who has contributed to what is possibly the best resource on the web relating to EC261. This thread is now closed for further posting, and the new thread for 2016 can be found here:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/briti...61-2004-a.html

We close large threads here because particularly for mobile phone users very large threads get difficult to navigate. The contents of this thread will nevertheless remain available for reference, and there is a lot in here that is worth reading. Again my thanks to everyone who has asked questions, queried issues or provided guidance.