melch

henkybaby I also have a feeling that BA is trying to get rid of the responsibility by using "severe turbulence" excuse, but for me it is not working for such long delay. Just to remind, the plane on inbound flight landed in JNB on 15 Feb at 7am, my flight tp LHR was scheduled for 8pm (15 Feb) and we finally departured at 10pm on 16 Feb. If BA says that "mandatory safety checks have to be carried out in line with manufacturers guidelines" they had more than enough time and in my opinion they haven't done enough to minimize the delay.
After reading carefuly ECC-Net Air Passenger Rights Report 2015 mentioned below and court decisions regarding techical issues and extraordinary circumstances definitions I'm determined to continue the dispute with BA.
We'll see what would be the result.

chada

Not me personally but wanted your take on whether EU261 would apply to the situation my workmate found himself in:

What do the resident experts think? Is there a case for EU261 here (not sure as it cited weather but seems everything else at LHR took off ok around that time). If not is there any recourse for claiming the extra cost incurred re the car hire or is that one for Insurance?

corporate-wage-slave

28 March this year? That was Easter Monday and the significant weather disruption that day are well documented elsewhere in this forum:
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/briti...y-weather.html

A lot of FTers got caught up in this in various forms. So EC261 compensation is unlikely to apply in my view. As for consequential losses, BA formally don't cover those, that is for their insurers. But if the cost isn't too massive and they have a shiny BAEC card, they may get some gesture towards it. The alternative presumably would have been to sit it out 24 hours to get to IAD, so a re-route to RDU seems a very suitable outcome in the circumstances.

chada

Many thanks for clearing that up c-w-s. I will pass this back to him and tell him to pursue the incidentals via the insurance.

dustcollector

HI,

My Vueling flight 7827 from Gatwick to Barcelona was delayed for 6 hr 55 mins on 29th March.

And I've tried to contact them to claim for compensation but I kept receiving this standard reply template. I even asked for the reason for the delay but again, same reply template.

Do you have any recommendations on claims agents to help settle such matters?

Dear Customer,

In response to your complaint, we would first of all like to apologize for any inconvenience.

Our Passenger Compensation and Service Plan includes the option, whenever you decide not to wait for the delayed plane, to:

- A free change of date (if a similar price range is available) on delays of more than two hours.

- Reimbursement of the ticket on delays of more than five hours.

Having complied with the European Regulations, we have to inform you that we cannot resolve your claim to your satisfaction by offering you additional compensation.

If you have any further questions, please feel free to contact us.

Your reference number is:

[SR_Number: 1-5976792318]


Please use this reference for future queries about your case, or click reply on this email.

Best regards,

Claims Department
VUELING AIRLINES S.A.

LondonElite

Can I suggest you don't double-post?

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trave...endations.html

This spreads the resolution across two separate threads. I've asked a moderator to combine that with this thread.

UKtravelbear

Why was the flight delayed? You may be bashing your head against a brick wall if the delay was e.g. weather or ATC related.

Did you specifically ask for EU261/2004 compensation or was it more generic? There is a history of many airlines denying claims unless the regulation is specifically mentioned.

tsp

[post deleted because long and with some irrelevant information; a more concise version is below (#311)]

corporate-wage-slave

Welcome to Flyertalk and welcome to the BA forum tsp. I do hope that you will get the opportunity to contribute to the other parts of this forum, which only has a value from the efforts put in by contributors here.

What I am not sure about here is how an 8 minute start up delay (which if ATC restricted is indeed one of the legitimate grounds for claim denial) can lead to you missing your flight. Indeed I don't see the timings of your arrival into ORD here, and looking at BA295 and BA297 on the 20 March, both aircraft seem to have arrived within 10 minutes of their normal timings. In which case you should have made your flight if you had a single ticket that respected the Minimum Connection Time.

Note also that if the first rebooked service, via DFW, would have got you to MSY within 3 hours, then you haven't got a claim either: the subsequent delay there was caused by (presumably) AA, and they aren't covered by EC/261.

tsp

Thanks for the quick reply.

I think on reflection that I should do a concise version of the above, because it's too long and has some irrelevant information in it. That will be in the next post. But to answer your questions:

- BA did say we were delayed by 8 minutes, but that is - I'm sure I remember this right - not true. We sat on the tarmac for ages. I guess it's possible we left the gate 8 minutes late (I don't recall), but we did not take off for some considerable time after. The MCT was, if I remember right, 1hr25, and the schedule had 1hr35 in it. I arrived around 45 minutes before the MSY flight took off, but couldn't get through immigration, baggage, security in time.
- The first rebooked flight would not have got me into MSY in time. The ORD-DFW flight was delayed, meaning just that I would have missed DFW-MSY, and been overnight at DFW instead of ORD. Final arrival time would have been similar.

tsp

The concise version:

On 20/3 I travelled Edinburgh-Heathrow-Chicago-New Orleans on BA (AA operated the Chicago-New Orleans leg). The Heathrow-Chicago flight was late taking off, causing me to miss my connection at Chicago. After some complications, I flew Chicago-New Orleans the following day. I arrived 18 hours later than scheduled. The airline put me up in a nearby hotel for the night I was in Chicago.

I have submitted a claim for compensation. BA refused this, on the grounds that the flight "was delayed because of operational circumstances outside of our control". I queried what these circumstances are, and they said that my flight "was delayed by 8 minutes due to a Start up delay, which isn't a payable reason under EU legislation".

We took off much more than 8 minutes late. It's possible that we left the gate 8 minutes late (I don't recall exactly), but we sat on the tarmac for ages. I remember thinking that I was bound to miss my connection at O'Hare, which I did.

What should I do next? Does anybody know what a "start up delay" is? Anybody have any experience of similar? All replies are appreciated. Thanks for reading.

UKtravelbear

Was this all on one ticket or two separate ones?

It matters because if on 2 then anything that happened once you arrived in ORD (late or not) does not come under EU261.

Could you post the actual flight numbers? It would help give you more accurate information on departure and arrival times.

And it is arrival times against the schedule that matter not departure times.

corporate-wage-slave

A Start Up delay can be a number of things, but in the LHR context it often means that ATC have told BA they can't move off their stand until a certain time due, typically, to congestion on the runways, or sometimes congestion on the apron. 8 minutes would be on the low side for LHR, it can be 20 minutes quite routinely.

Can you let me know which flight you were on? 295 or 297, so I can look up the times.

Also what time would you have arrived into MSY on the first rebooking?

tsp

Thanks both.
UKtravelbear - All one booking, of course.
corporate-wage-slave - Thanks for deciphering "start up delay".

To complete the details:
I was on BA295, 20/3/16. My original schedule was:
LHR 11:40am - ORD 3:30pm (BA295)
ORD 5:05pm - MSY 7:24pm (BA4449, operated by AA)
Actual arrival at O'Hare was, I would guess, around 4pm. Because it takes a while to get through immigration, security, etc, I missed the connection. I understand that MCT at O'Hare is 1hr25. I was rebooked on a flight to MSY the following day (AA3569, 21/3, 1025am). I was put up in a hotel at O'Hare and given a voucher for food. I think I was offered a flight to New Orleans for very early on 21/3, which I declined because I wanted sleep. Note that even if I'd taken it I would still have arrived in New Orleans much more than 6 hours after scheduled arrival.

corporate-wage-slave

OK, so BA295 left the gate at 11:48 (source Flightaware), took off at 12:15 (multiple sources), ORD touchdown at 15:27 (Flightaware), doors open at 16:05 hrs (Expertflyer). This ties in with your recollection.

So you had a small delay at LHR and another at ORD. You also had a tight connection, 8 minutes of the delay (at least) was due to LHR ATC, and you seem to have delays in US immigration as well. So if you had missed the flight by about 8 to 20 minutes - depending how you want to argue this - I think you're probably going to be out of luck here, that 8 to 20 minutes isn't going to be down to BA in my view.

You would need to prove that due to circumstances under BA's control, they could have got you to ORD about 30 minutes earlier and I think you will struggle. [To be more precise, it's actually up to BA rather than you to prove that extraordinary circumstances were involved, but in the case of two of the world's most congested airports with a terminal change and US immigration this doesn't strike me as very difficult].

How did you find out you had missed the flight? At the departing gate? Or beforehand at check-in? Your original service left MSY at 17:05, so you needed to be at the AA gate probably 16:45 to have made that service.

Quite apart from the compensation issue, I'm surprised they didn't rebook you on to the Charlotte service at 18:30, which would have got you to MSY that evening at least. Maybe it was full.

Now that is just my view, and there are other readings, but it's not a cut and dried case in your favour, only a judge could decide.