AdvocatusD

Thank you very much for your reply and for all your good work. It is incredibly helpful.

1. The flight was initially only delayed. I called them and amongst the many things I said, was that I needed to get home that night and how were they going to help me. At this point the flight was only delayed with no suggestion of when it might take off. They were unable to suggest anything as they had no other scheduled flights. This was at about 1600 hours. There was another text later saying it was still delayed and pushed departure to 2300 hours.

2. I received an text/email later confirming the flight had been formally cancelled and scheduled to leave the next day at 1100 hours. I do not have those texts anymore sadly.

3. I did not call BA at this point as I knew there were no other flights till the next day and booked on Easyjet. Got home at 4am and left for work 3 hours later.

In essence, the flight was formally "cancelled". But the same email offered another flight the next day which wasn't an option. I then booked the Easyjet flights without further contact with them. Am I still due EU compensation?

I will write to them again to set out the above and that I am very much due the compensation as the flight was cancelled.

corporate-wage-slave

Well for anyone else reading, please don't delete texts like this! Can you retrieve it from cache/deleted texts? Did you perhaps forward it to someone? The email you presumably still have? If not, write out a statement to yourself as to your precise recollection of what you got, what it said, and when it arrived. You may need to make it a Statement of Truth later. But the sooner you do that the better. Anyway if it mentioned the cancelled word in that, then BA don't have a leg to stand on, other than if there was extraordinary circumstances. What I am hoping is that they quickly decided you were not on the flight, treated it as a delay internally, without realising fully that you had taken matters in to your own hand.

In this situation you should get a refund on the unused travel (probably very little) and compensation unless extraordinary circumstances applies, which I think is unlikely. So back to my previous advice, 2 weeks notice then MCOL, keep stressing the words "my flight was cancelled" in correspondence.

craigmmorq4

Got.some info from flightstat... And ba o twitter keep changing their minds why the flight was delayed...they now saying to.my wife that it was delayed because of lack of facilities at the stand

What does tail change mean? Flight was actually only delayed by 13 mins it says below


Time
Date UTC ORY LHR Event Data Updated
May 21 00:45 2:45 AM 1:45 AM RecordCreated
May 23 15:23 5:23 PM 4:23 PM Time Adjustment
Estimated Gate Departure Changed To 05/23/15 07:52 PM
Estimated Gate Arrival Changed To 05/23/15 07:56 PM
May 23 16:59 6:59 PM 5:59 PM Time Adjustment
Estimated Gate Departure Changed From 05/23/15 07:52 PM To 05/23/15 07:59 PM
Estimated Gate Arrival Changed From 05/23/15 07:56 PM To 05/23/15 08:03 PM
May 23 17:29 7:29 PM 6:29 PM Time Adjustment
Estimated Gate Departure Changed From 05/23/15 07:59 PM To 05/23/15 07:52 PM
Estimated Gate Arrival Changed From 05/23/15 08:03 PM To 05/23/15 07:56 PM
May 23 18:00 8:00 PM 7:00 PM STATUS-Active
Estimated Gate Departure Changed From 05/23/15 07:52 PM To 05/23/15 07:53 PM
Status Changed From Scheduled To Active
Estimated Gate Arrival Changed From 05/23/15 07:56 PM To 05/23/15 07:57 PM
Actual Gate Departure Changed To 05/23/15 07:53 PM
May 23 18:07 8:07 PM 7:07 PM Gate Adjustment
TAIL Changed To GEUPP
May 23 18:13 8:13 PM 7:13 PM Time Adjustment
Estimated Gate Arrival Changed From 05/23/15 07:57 PM To 05/23/15 07:59 PM
Estimated Runway Departure Changed To 05/23/15 08:05 PM
Actual Runway Departure Changed To 05/23/15 08:05 PM
May 23 19:13 9:13 PM 8:13 PM STATUS-Landed
Estimated Runway Arrival Changed To 05/23/15 07:54 PM
Status Changed From Active To Landed
Estimated Gate Arrival Changed From 05/23/15 07:59 PM To 05/23/15 08:01 PM
Actual Gate Arrival Changed To 05/23/15 08:01 PM
Actual Runway Arrival Changed To 05/23/15 07:54 PM

Filthy Monkey

Friend has just been offered 12,000 Avios in lieu of €250 for a delayed European flight (over 3 hours delay and resulted in an overnight stay in London before onward domestic connection the next day) a couple of weeks back. I think this is a bit stingy, but would appreciate some other opinions...

AdvocatusD

I have been hammering away and have now had a result.

"We've reviewed your claim and you’re entitled to compensation for the delay to your flight BA0663 on 24 June. The distance of your disrupted journey was between 1500km and 3500km. This has been calculated in accordance with EU legislation and you’re entitled to 400.00 EUR in compensation."

Naturally, I will be reminding them that there were two of us, so that'll be 400 EUROS each, so 800 EUROS.

I will be pursuing the refund of my Avois and companion voucher as well as the costs of rebooking and let you know how that goes.

With thanks again for your guidance.

Dave Noble

Did the other passenger lodge a claim?

V10

12000 avios can be purchased from BA for 207GBP.

Depends if your friend was otherwise out of pocket due to the delay. Personally I'd always be taking the cash over Avios in this situation for the straight forward reason that cash is spendable anywhere, and it costs BA less to give me a load of Avios.

apacuk

There is a generic problem here with alleged ATC delays as extraordinary circumstances. There's no way that we as individuals can check / verify whether such delays are genuinely ATC related or not.

I noticed the CAA put a note on their website recently about delays on 2 July at LHR which were considered as extraordinary circumstances, and have written to them suggesting they should publish this kind of information more regularly.

Is there any other way we mere mortals can verify ATC delays?

iswitchedtodelta

Hi

I was booked on BA1344 (LHR to LBA - 19.25 - 20.25) on 05.07.2015.

Got a message on my phone at 17.51 whilst in departures that my flight had been cancelled. This was the last flight to Leeds/Bradford. So I went to customer service desk who said that I had to go to Gate 2. At Gate 2 was told that I had to leave departures and go all the way to Check-In to be rebooked.

When I got to Check-In I was offered a flight the next morning, which was not acceptable to me as I needed to be in work for 08.00.So I asked to be rebooked on the last flight to Manchester (BA1404 which was due to depart at 20.20).

When I asked if I would be entitled to EU Compensation as my flight has been cancelled and was given a vague response of "should be". I also asked if could get the cost of a taxi back home as my flight had been cancelled. I was told that this should also be possible.

I then received my boarding passes and advised that there was just a 10 minute delay to the flight due to the last inbound arrival.

I wanted to ensure that if I made a claim for a taxi fare that it would be honoured and paid by British Airways so I asked a manager on duty in the Check-In area who also gave a vague response that as long as kept the receipts it should be possible.

BA1404 was supposed to depart at 20.20, however suffered from a rolling delay. Did not board until 21.20 then due to other problems with fuelling and ground crew running out of hours. Eventually pushed back at 22.15. Unfortunately this a peak time for departures and the plane did not take off until 22.45.

The plane arrived into Manchester 23.22. I booked a taxi shortly after arrival on the assumption that British Airways would pay the taxi fare of over £100.

I put in my claim for the Taxi and also flight cancellation and was very surprised with the response I received from British Airways.

Thanks for contacting us about your EU compensation claim. I know how stressful it can be when your flight’s cancelled, mainly because you have to change all your plans. You certainly don’t expect this to happen when you fly with us and I’m sorry we let you down.

We always want to maintain as stable an operation as possible. This isn’t only because of the disruption to our customers, but also because of how difficult it is to recover from a cancelled flight. I'm sorry for the inconvenience caused to you.


I'd like to inform you that your claim’s been refused because we offered you a new flight that left no more than two hours before your original departure time and meant you reached your destination less than four hours after your scheduled arrival time. Under EU legislation, we’re not liable to pay any compensation for this kind of situation.

I'd like to contribute 50.00 GBP towards your travel expenses. Our payment will be transferred to your account and will be with you soon.

Thanks for getting in touch with us about this. If there’s anything else I can help you with, please don’t hesitate to contact me directly.

Best regards

iswitchedtodelta

I eventually got home at 01.25.

Is British Airways correct in that I am not entitled to anything for the cancellation and delay in getting home?

If this is the case I would have cancelled my ticket, get EU Compensation and either get a coach or train to the nearest big city where I live and get a taxi home.

V10

Did they give you a reason for the cancellation of the original flight?

In any case there are some strange inconsistencies in their response. 4 hours is the period for a delay to a long haul flight before full compensation kicks in. As far as I'm aware, Leeds Bradford (despite being in a far flung corner of the UK) is not classed as a long haul flight 3500km from origin.

lorcancoyle

I usually get offered 2,000 Avios for £25 - option when booking RFS - so I'd say stingy...

lorcancoyle

My view would be:
- cancellation
- rerouting
- delay of over 2 hours (aircraft arrival)
- slam dunk for €250 under EU261 IMO

On taxi, BA would only technically be paying for taxi from MAN to LBA - no idea if that makes £50 reasonable or not!

henkybaby

You did ask to be rebooked on the flight to MAN, right ? It wasn't their suggestion ?

If so, they might be able to argue that you landed at your new destination within 4 hrs etc. Doesn't sound right to me. I always try to make sure to get everything in writing. Not always easy.

Dave Noble

With the cancellation of you flight, the airline was still responsible to get you to Leeds Bradford .

You were due to arrive at 20:25. In order for the airline not to have to pay compensation, then the following is required

The new scheduled time of the flight arrival into Manchester is 21:15.

I would say that it is unlikely to be possible to get from the gate of the aeroplane to Leeds Bradford in 65 minutes . Without traffic google maps estimates the drive at 76 minutes

I would say that you are due the EUR250

I would ignore the delay on the LHR-MAN flight since there is differing views on whether the rebooking signs off on the scheduled time at time of making the change or whether delays to the replacement service would count too ( vs the logic that you may be entitled to separate compensation on a 2nd flight if that flight is delayed )