SinoBritAsia

Thanks CWS, hope to bump into you and say hello at a BA party properly in Hong Kong next time!

tzecatzlipoca

Sorry to hi-jack this post - I'm new to the forum and this seems like the relevant place!


To all you very wise and experienced travelers out there! I'm looking for some guidance regarding a predicament with a flight downgrade.

I purchased 3 Club World tickets using the Opodo website travelling from DUB to PHX via LHR. The flight was back in March 2016.

Whilst our initial flight from DUB > LHR was part of our BA tickets, the carrier was Aer Lingus.Unfortunately due to bad weather I believe, this flight was cancelled and we were subsequently re-booked onto another Aer Lingus flight from DUB > ORD with a 5 hour layover followed by a further flight with United Airlines from ORD to PHX.

The duration of these flights were flown in Economy.

The Aer Lingus ticket agent who amended our itinerary in Dublin acknowledged this but simply said they had no seats available in business class, they didn’t have any alternative flights we could take and if we accepted the revised itinerary and flew in economy we would be entitled to a 50% refund on the full cost of our tickets. Ok - not an ideal start to the holiday but something I could live with.

When we completed our return leg in April 2016 I telephoned BA to lodge my claim and they advised that since our booking was made via Opodo – we needed to register our claim with them. Ok. Several weeks went past after reporting the claim and then a few months and we heard nothing so I telephoned Opodo and they simply advised it was ‘pending’ with BA and they had not yet received any response. I began calling Opodo on a weekly basis, as they suggested I do for an update, each time I was told to call back in another week since they hadn’t received any acknowledgement from BA.

After about 4 months with no updates / responses from BA or Opodo I reached out to BA customer relations directly and asked them to look into my case and see why it was taking so long.They were abrupt to say the least and said it had nothing to do with them and I needed to continue to pursue my claim via Opodo.

After a few more calls toboth Opodo and BA it seemed that I was piggy in the middle – BA blamed Opodo and Opodo blamed BA. At some point BA said they needed to verify my story with Aer Lingus and bearing in mind I had already sent BA copies of all my boarding passes and revised itinerary several months prior via post, they had everything they needed but still failed to do act.

A few more months passed withme regularly phoning Opodo and BA – still no progress was made.

Its now 10 months since I was downgraded and I still have not received any written response from BA to my letters / online requests nor are Opodo able to do anything.


I expect I am definitely entitled to some form of compensation / reimbursement and I recognise that Opodo will only credit me if BA acknowledge my claim.


I have read a lot about the claims under the EU261/2004 on here etc but would really appreciate your wisdom and perhaps some direction as to who I should be pursuing. I know I haven’t mentioned Aer Lingus yet but I have also spoken to their customer relations team who were far more polite and actually looked at our flights and concluded it was BA’s responsibility…….

UnstableFlyer

Thx for the reply. The tickets were on a BA flight number, but Finnair metal, purchased from BA - do I need to go to Finnair? And can I get an EC claim in without ending up with the TPs refunded? Ie get compensation but no refund for the flights?

UKtravelbear

it is the operating carrier that matters not who you booked with or the flight number so yes if the flight was on Finnair metal you need to go to them.

pmcg

I've just had a court reply for my claim last year where it had been "stayed" pending determination by HHJ Harris QC Christie v Easyjet.

Says the stay has been lifted and that:

Anyone know if they need a specific form (N1 ?) or if a covering letter will do?

El_LioN

Hi there,

Small query regarding compensation claim.

I flew on BA2285 (LCY->GVA) on the 1st of January, 2017. Flight started on time, but landing approach was aborted. Pilot said weather conditions in GVA were bad (fog). He waited a few moments, then informed us that we would be diverted to BSL (no second try of landing).

After landing in BSL, captain said that he wasn't able to land in these conditions in GVA due to a technical failure which appeared during the flight. Interestingly, the aircraft (G-LCYU) was also diverted the day before. Unfortunately, I have no other proof than my testimony of this information (supposed technical failure).

In short, the diversion management in BSL was kinda catastrophic (no BA crew there). We were offered a bus transfer to GVA and a ground staff member gave us our passenger rights form. We finally arrived with more than 5 hours of delay in GVA by bus.

I contacted BA customer service and claimed for a compensation. They are rejecting it on the reasons of extraordinary circumstances due to adverse weather conditions and denying that there was a technical failure.

I countered and explained that all other planes landed safely in GVA this day and told them about the pilote's message, but they are still denying.

I forwarded the case to the swiss autorities but would like to have your opinion on this. Thank you in advance.

corporate-wage-slave

I don't actually know, but I would call the court's clerk (or Scottish equivalent) to find out what s/he says. This kind of suggests a claim that was made for two or more travellers but the header information was made in the name of one person only, so not per se related to the Stay, other than that someone has given the claim form more scrutiny after the Stay was lifted.

corporate-wage-slave

Interesting. It seems unlikely that an aircraft would go from GVA to BSL due to technical reasons alone, since GVA would strike me as the better equipped airport with more facilities. If it was a mix of weather delays on ATC, technical issue and the captain making a judgement call that s/he wanted to divert to BSL then you can see it gets a bit murky, and probably a judge would be needed to unravel that. The captain would not have made a diversion of that sort lightly. For what it is worth, thebasource is reporting the diversion purely as weather related, but again there may be more to it than that.

I'm not familiar with the Swiss authorities willingness to be involved at that detailed level, some regulators are more hands on than others. If you go down the CEDR route, at some point BA will have to come up with more detailed evidence, which would again be assessed as to whether Extraordinary Circumstances applies or not. I suppose this is one case where the details really would matter. However under the Regulation is down to BA, not you, to prove the case.

Welcome to Flyertalk, El_Lion, it's good to see you here, and I hope you will be able to participate more widely in the BA and other forums.

El_LioN

Dear corporate-wage-slave

Thank you for your quick answer.

What I don't really understand in this case (and what makes me proceed to the claim) is the fact that all other aircrafts landed in GVA. I had a friend on another, later flight from LHR to GVA who landed safely, even though it seems that the fog on this day was thick and that the crew asked the passenger to be particularly cautious during the approach.

I remember that I could hardly see the planes wing end at some time during the approach. My first reaction after the interruption of the approach procedure was "Come on, the weather is bad, but pilots are supposed to be trained and it's their job to land in bad weather circumstances like these!". I was surprised that the pilot didn't tried a second approach.

In my understanding, if the weather was actually as bad as BA is saying (and therefore representing an "extraordinary circumstance"), other planes would also have been diverted, which wasn't the case at all. That is precisely why I am sending this case to the autorities.

I will let you know what comes out of the proceedings.

vbroucek

GVA is equipped for "zero-zero" landing and that would explain other planes landing. However, in your case, it could have been that the bad weather was compounded by some technical issues with ILS. Someone here might be able to tell us what the visibility in GVA was. If it was "zero-zero" and without having fully functional ILS and not being able to do visual approach, you should thank the pilot for diverting to BSL immediately instead of risking lives...

Heathrow Tower

Health warning: I'm not a pilot!

However, I believe there are a number of technical failures that wouldn't prevent an aircraft departing or flying completely safely, but would prevent it carrying out a CAT III (low visibility) approach and landing.

It sounds that this might have been the case here.

If there was a failure with the ILS on the ground, this would have affected more flights. Indeed, any ILS problem during low visibility CAT III ops is treated very seriously and the whole system for that runway may well just be switched off or downgraded in category so that it cannot be used in such poor visibility.

winchpete

I suggest the "technical failure" could be that the aircraft was not equipped to land in the weather conditions encountered at Geneva or, if it was, the crew were not qualified to do so.

For example, aircraft and/or crews may only be certified to land in CAT I or CAT II conditions. As LCY is only CAT I, BA might have decided it is not worth their while to have aircraft equipped or crews trained for CAT III landings.

THEPUMA

Just had my claim accepted but been offered 50,000 Avios as an alternative to the €600 I am entitled to, which I am inclined to reject, but would consider accepting a higher amount.

Does anyone know whether this figure is negotiable or are they pretty firm?

Alternatively, I would consider accepting if they would release me some Avios flights which are currently not showing availability. Any chance of this?

rapidex

Or it could be simply that 1 of the crew members was not cat3 qualified.

To land in cat3 requires that the aircraft has the minimum amount of approach equipment serviceable,the autolands must be serviceable and the crew qualified.Any item missing from the list might cause a diversion.

corporate-wage-slave

I've seen reports of this figure being used before, but I've not see any reports of negotiation around it, I think's a standard lookup table used. If you routinely run low of Avios AND you're getting routinely getting 2p per Avios value out of them, this is a good deal. If you get plenty of Avios from other (cheaper) sources and you get less value out of them you should go for cash. If in doubt go for cash. If Sterling appreciates in value from the current 1.175€ to £1 that pushes the equation nearer to Avios.