It may cause an issue, but I would hope not, since the delay, plus the cause of the delay, seem to put you squarely into the right area for compensation, then there is the added inconvenience of an overnight stay. I would claim. I am guessing the same flight was used, just delayed, they didn't rebook you onto another service (so same seat and so on). If they rebooked you to another scheduled service you would have a solid case, ditto if BA had directly rebooked you to CPT. But in view of the sheer length of the delay I would hope you would be successful.

You just availed yourself of the right to rerouting at a later date to your final destination when BA had seats available. Or you got rerouted with the earliest arrival at your final destination (don't think this is the case, but it might be - don't have relative arrival times). Both of those are options where pax gets to choose under the regs. BA wouldn't have a leg to stand on denying compensation IMO

Strictly speaking the right to re-routing is related to cancellations, not delays, and airlines are aware of this. So if a longhaul is "delayed" overnight it saves them giving a re-routing option by block booking everyong on to the revised timing. Now in one the first EC261 cases to come before them, the CJEU said that "delays" that look like cancellations should be treated as cancellations for compensation purposes, but BA typically still do this if an aircraft goes technical late at night, they run the service the next day with the same crew, seating etc, with eveyone automatically transferred over. At out-stations they may not even reprint the boarding passes, at LHR they have to do so. The CJEU ruling was for a particularly artificial construct, the "delayed" service was run by another aircraft type at another airport!

In Sturgeon, the CJEU was very clear that delaying a flight to the next day is still a delay, not a cancellation. Such things as whether boarding passes are re-issued or not, whether the flight is shown as "cancelled" or not on screens, whether passengers have to collect baggage or not are all irrelevant factors. I would have thought that whether the flight is flown by the same crew or not, same aircraft or not, etc... would be equally irrelevant. If you transferred all passengers to another flight that was already scheduled to happen, then it would be a different story. However, if you just delay (for however long) the departure of the flight, it remains a delay.
I rack my brain but cannot recognise that 'one the first EC261 cases to come before them, the CJEU said that "delays" that look like cancellations should be treated as cancellations' case. Would you mind clarifying which case you have in mind?

The rest of my clause was "for compensation purposes". It was Sturgeon, where the CJEU stated the principle of proportionality. It stated that the "loss of time suffered is irreversible, objective and easily quantifiable", and that granting affected passengers "immediate fixed pecuniary compensation is particularly appropriate".

Thank you, I will review your posts. I wonder - since the offloading (according to the captain) was due to check-in issues (July 17 was the day there were many issues due to the new computer rollout), does that go in my favor - as it was BA's fault - or against it - as extraordinary?

I guess I will see for myself but wouldn't mind being prepared if anyone knows.

EDIT - Regarding this text: "If you are contacting us on behalf of someone else, we require signed confirmation from the person who travelled", is that the case when we are on the same itinerary and are husband and wife? Or do I need to fill out two web forms, one for each of us?

In that case, I would have to slightly disagree with you, at any rate in terms of how you phrase it. It seems to me that the CJEU is clear in Sturgeon: a cancellation is a cancellation is a cancellation and a delay is a delay is a delay. There is no such thing in Sturgeon as a "delay that looks like a cancellation". While the two are quite distinct in the CJEU's mind, nonetheless they do lead to a comparable inconvenience for the passenger and, under the non-discrimination/equality principle (rather than proportionality) therefore equally attract a comparable right to compensation. This still leaves the door slightly open (based on the equality principle) for lorcancoyle, though, but it is not the most straightforward one and not one on which I would want to bet money, especially at lower jurisdiction levels.

Hello again,

I had posted here two weeks ago when I had just missed a connection flight from London to Athens. My trip began in Washington, Dulles and when we landed in London we were told from the captain we couldn't go to the gate because there were mechanical problems with another plane. We ended up sitting in the plane for an hour and when we got off I couldn't board in my other flight. I was rebooked for a flight the next day and I ended up arriving to my final destination an day late. I applied for a compensation and some days ago the lady on the phone told me that she looked in my case and saw that I arrived an hour later because of an en-route delay for which the airline doesn't pay. She said I would have missed my flight anyways. I told her that is not correct and that I know how long I saw in the plane for and what the pilot said. She asked me then if I knew what type of plane was that had the issue. I said that I don't know for sure since I don't work there and that based on the information I got from the pilot I think it was a BA. She said she will look into further with the "expert team" and will contact with me again.

After that I got into flight stats and found the information that clearly states we arrived actually EARLY and that we didn't arrive at the gate for an hour. I also found that the same day there were two flights that had issues. One was a BA one that left one hour late, 2 mins before we were allowed to go to the gate, and a Brussels Airlines one that got cancelled. However the Brussels Airlines one was on Terminal 2, and I arrived on Terminal 5 and that's where the delayed BA one was too. Gate C55. I think it's clear from what I found out that it could have only been a BA plane that cause me to miss my flight.

My questions are :

1) Is there a way I can find out from somewhere which gate my plane arrived at? It was an a380. I can't find the gate number of my flight that day anywhere.
2) How can they claim something so wrong, and make a liar out of me when there are documents of the pilot explaining what happened.
3) Even if they claim that the issue with the other plane wasn't their fault, that still doesn't make it an extraordinary situation, does it? Isn't the airline responsible for such situations?
4)Do I need to contact the civil aviation authority to find out the truth?

I am sorry for the very long post, but I wanted to give all the information I had. I would like someone else's opinion on how to go with this because I don't believe what BA offers as an explanation so far. Thank you very much in advance.

Well it's possible the agent processing this was as confused as I was by some of the information here! Your earlier post was a bit clearer, at least in my opinion:
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/26911562-post696.html

It's not your job to prove anything here. If you were delayed more than 3 hours by this irrop, AND the HEL/IST booking couldn't improve on that, then you should stick to you guns. Basically the argument is: I booked X, expecting to arrive a Y. I ended up on Z and I ended up X-plus-a-lot late. Keep it simple, the cause seems non extraordinary to me. You seem to be dealing with the Customer Relations team, who can make judgement calls on straightforward cases, the EC261 team will look into the more complex ones and yes that does take time.

If you lose patience, and have a UK address you can use, then just go for MCOL as outlined at the top of this thread.

It's probably sufficiently unusual to qualify as extraordinary, but very much inside BA's control so no defence there IMO. They were BA specific issues, where they should have performed appropriate testing etc. and can't blame a 3rd party not contracted / employed by them.

I think BA were refusing compensation when someone else cut the cable to their terminal at JFK, which is compatible with the get out.

I am sorry, I meant to say "i arrived a day late". I must have sounded crazy with the "an hour earlier" hahaha.
Thank you for your information. I really hope I don't have to prove anything, but I started feeling like I had to find proof because of the nonsense of the Customer Relations agent that talked to me. I will try to be patient and wait for a proper decision from the EC261 team.

And yea you would think issues with planes are anything but extraordinary. It happens all the time and airlines should be responsible for them.

Quiick one.

My flight has just been cancelled. If I rebook is that eligible still for EC261?

Possibly! We would need more details to be sure.

I'm on the 8459 at 17.05 LCY-AMS today. I've called and rebooked onto the 8455 at 15.30 (tight, i know from W4!).

Does the fact that I've rebooked render me ineligible?

Got to run!

On the day rerouting leaving more than 1 hour before it could be. I'm assuming that the reason for cancellation wasn't extraordinary. Was that the only flight they offered, if they offered something complying with below you may not get your €125

they are informed of the cancellation less than seven days before the scheduled time of departure and are offered re-routing, allowing them to depart no more than one hour before the scheduled time of departure and to reach their final destination less than two hours after the scheduled time of arrival.