Tobias-UK

BA clearly believe they are legally entitled to do what they have done. Others here have the opposite view. Fortunately we have courts to adjudicate on who is right and to what extent.

I say, and will say this one last time, this is not a straightforward case, it is not as black and white as some here would have us believe.

And for the avoidance of doubt I do not speak for BA. I am not a BA spokesperson, I have no personal agenda. I merely offer a dispassionate opinion in an effort to provide some balance to the arguments.

Tobias-UK

That argument is a distraction to the real issue. An English court will not be concerned about that provision in a case of this type.

Cymro

I think that there is quite a lot of risk for BA in defending these cases, if litigated.

There's also a huge upside in well... getting their F cabins back, not to mention the ability to sell extra J tickets if F has unsold seats.

So I would not be surprised to see BA settle claims brought, provided there is a strict NDA, once proceedings are issued, but to stand steadfastly to its position until then.

Single_Flyer

I agree with you. I apologize; I wasn't making a legal statement, just a "good customer service" statement.

I tend to agree with your analysis. I am not familiar with the German/UK court system, but I am quite certain that BA has people that are working for them.

BA legally has the right to NOT issue refunds after 24 hours if the customer asks. Consumers do not have that same right.

orbitmic

I agree with the second point, but aren't sure that we can take the first one for granted.

I could conceive BA being perfectly aware that it is not a black and white issue but accepting the risk that they prefer to play hard ball on that being fully aware that they might lose some (not necessarily all) cases if it comes to that, just because the alternative is so unpalatable for them (effectively, ruining their F inventory for several months on two important destinations, one of which at least happens to be extremely expensive to run and undoubtedly needs a lot of F income to be sustainable). Ultimately, they know that not many customers would start legal proceedings so even if they lose a proportion of those cases, they might consider that this would on balance be a less bad outcome than honouring the fares.

I know people will say that there would be a reputational damage to losing court cases, but it would not be the first time airlines decide to take that risk. BA (among others) did just that in its interpretation of compensation for long delays under EC261/2004. My sense is that they probably always knew that their interpretation was untenable in all likelihood but they chose to stick to their guns till they lost. The same went for KL originally refusing to pay for overnight accommodation under EC261/2004 in the case of cancellations that were not due to them. Again, the reg is crystal clear on that but KL chose to pretend that it was not until they lost in court.

Another way of saying this is that airlines do not always act on the basis of what they believe is a good solution. At times, they might consider that they only have a choice between a number bad solutions and try to choose the least bad of them. I suspect that it might very well be one such case that we are dealing with here.

Single_Flyer

I am sure you are correct. Corporations do this all the time. Legality isn't usually the issue they evaluate; it is the cost.

I am not familiar with German/UK courts. Can a court "fine" a company? For example in the US, companies can be fined for illegal activity or violating certain rules. The banks are an obvious example where fines were in the billions.

Obviously that wouldn't be the case here, but I wonder if the courts could issue a million Euro settlement, it might be a good stick to keep BA in line in the future.

Of course, that would assume that what they did is in fact illegal; which would need to be determined by a court.

Calchas

A court fines a company as it would a natural person, if it is found guilty of a crime and the sentence is a fine. In England it is the norm that the state pursues a person for a crime, but a private person may bring a prosecution against another in his own name if he wishes.

But in the cases you speak, the banks were not really "fined by a court". The prosecuting authority reached an agreement with the banks to decline to prosecute them and their officers, in exchange for a settlement. The banks wisely agreed.

I cannot see in England any competition authority having the time to pursue BA on behalf of its customers; they have much bigger fish to fry.

TabTraveller

I'd disagree with that assertion. BA may have been given advice that they aren't legally entitled to do what they have done HOWEVER commercially they know that 98% of customers will bugger off straight away or after an email or two. It is far cheaper to deal with the 2% than absorb the loss for everyone, especially where there will be virtually no cost implication to BA in most cases even if they lose/settle as most people are simply after reinstatement.

CountryKerry

I am by no way affected by this "saga" but am very curious to know how BA expect customers to know that this pricing error was just that - a pricing error.

At what point is it not an obvious error, just an error on BA's part, and then not an error at all but a correct fare?

Normal price is €3500. Tickets were €1200, i.e. 66% less than normal... but this was during a sale!

BA have offered discounts close to and perhaps exceeding this discount during a 2-4-£2014 promotion.

I notice that flights to Atlanta are 57% cheaper at the moment in the sale, but these are correct (I assume!), so is it between 57-66% it becomes and error, and then obvious?

I saw the post go up on Head for points, and am frankly glad I never got involved. I hope that BA refund the forex fee's as well, but I have a feeling they won't!

NA-Flyer

I have a friend who told me that he bought two F tickets on the same day of the KL mess but with two different routing. One of them is FRA-HKG and the other one FRA-SIN for about $ 2500/each and these tickets are still intact

DANNYB111

The refund hit my account today, and is c. £100 more than the initial payment I made [^].

Is this just a movement in the FX market over the last week, or an obvious error?

Given BA have decided to rule a grey area in their favour by saying obvious error on the fare, I'm going to say an obvious movement in the FX market.

Tobias-UK

Is the Euro amount correct or is that sum inflated too?

orbitmic

I share Tobias-UK's question. Somehow it would surprise me if BA over-inflated the sums although it could be a clever sweetener. Many people would consider that getting £50-100 for nothing would be a fair settlement.

Tobias-UK

Or another example of yet more incompetence. They really are not helping themselves here are they?

DANNYB111

I can't see the underlying euro amount on my statement [AMEX Gold Credit Card].

EDIT: Just worked it out, the underlying Euro is correct, just a significant difference in exchange rates: Bought at 1.3966, Refunded at 1.3463.

I'll stop my moaning now that I'm a £100 up, I suspect some people who bought multiples of tickets will [coincidentally, rather than by BA's design] come off very well indeed from this.