Beaulieu

Question - I have a delay from a few years ago from YVR that, according to BA, "as Captain reported sick prior to departure and the spare Captain required minimum rest". The "spare Captain" was actually the one who brought in the aircraft that we flew back on, and it led to around a 17 hour delay.

As far as I'm aware, there isn't case law around the topic but there is precedent (albeit non-binding) from small claims court cases that illness, or more the lack of available crew, is something within the control of the airline as it is their choice to.

I am considering pursuing this further at the moment and wonder if anyone has any thoughts in either direction as to what avenues this may be? I was under the impression that it was a 2 night break for crew in Vancouver so it being BA's choice to not use the one from the next night (who would have had minimum rest).

corporate-wage-slave

This would be my understanding, unless the crew member got sick mid flight or some such and led to a diversion. But you are right to highlight some haziness over this, if you got the right judge (e.g. in Liverpool or Reading) you would probably have a stronger case here, another district judge may think you're being unreasonable in expecting BA to rustle up a pilot in Vancouver. BA have tried to fight these cases on occasions, I don't know what their current stance would be, perhaps an out of court telephone call the day before the hearing? I wouldn't take this to CEDR, though the law tends to the passengers' side here (explicitly) I can imagine a CEDR arbitrator would also think it an unreasonable proposition.

Schiehallion

Smith/Collinson vs. BA was one example of this (heard in the County Court), and this was the Bahamas - albeit BA might now include a more standard demonstration of why it's not reasonable to include an extra pilot on such flights.

https://www.flightdelays.co.uk/pdf/p...ss_victory.pdf

sxc

So just to check it seems that CEDR is available to non U.K. Residents?

corporate-wage-slave

As far as I can tell, yes.

The reason I say that is that this was set up at the behest of the National Enforcement Body (NEB) for the UK, which is the Civil Aviation Authority, which many of us connected with this thread felt was improper: the CAA's has many roles around aviation, many much more important than customer remediation, and therefore there was both a potential conflict of interest and a loss of focus. The CAA probably didn't enjoy this part of its work either. So by setting up the CEDR process for BA and other UK airlines it divested itself of the daily, murky operations of this, while on paper retaining overall control. So this was set up on an airline basis, easyJet has similar arrangements. Overall for both BA and easyJet their main regulators are the CAA and the European version, the EASA.

When the CAA was doing the NEB role itself, it certainly handled complaints from overseas passengers, if it was a purely domestic trip, where else could a passenger go with a complaint? Now there may well be circumstances where another country's NEB would be more relevant, and there are many cases that the Spanish NEB has handled on behalf of UK citizens, for example. But because CEDR is an arms-length version of national enforcement activity, my belief is that overseas travellers can use it.

CEDR does not hold face to face hearings (it has that ability on paper I imagine, and the CEDR staff can and do make telephone calls to check details), its operations are very different to a court and so there are situations where CEDR is more suitable; and other cases, particularly if fine legal argument is involved, where the courts in the UK or overseas, would be better equipped.

pmcg

It was Liverpool court, I posted last year about them "staying" the claim pending the result of another case.
They stated that they were aware of on excess of 30+ claims where the "defendant" had used the "lightning strike" cause as exceptional circumstances.

In the end I sent in a new N1 form along with a covering letter so should cover all bases.

izzik

Has anyone had experience with requesting the 600 Euro payment via bank transfer and having BA send to an American bank? Are there fees involved (does this count as an int'l wire transfer)? Was the conversion rate (Euro->USD) reasonable?

Thanks.

dylanks

iirc, the conversion rate was as reasonable as any other transaction and my bank did not charge any fees (believe it was processed as an EFT rather than wire transfer, and perhaps done via their US account rather than a UK account?)

HilFly

I received a check, in USD, mailed within the US. I received it a few days after they approved my claim.

djmp

Question: reduced compensation or not?

EU-US flight (3500km+), mechanical problem after pushback, arrived 4 hours late. All pax held on plane for the duration. No rerouting offered.

BA has now said (twice) only reduced compensation (300 Euro) since delay was 4 hours. That does not seem to agree with the regulation.

corporate-wage-slave

Over 4 hours is 600€, under 4 hours is 300€ for the longer flights. Doors open ready for disembarkation at the arrival airport is what counts here, delay in departure is immaterial.

UKtravelbear

are you 100% sure the delay was >4 hours as not just under?

djmp

It was 3.5 hours late. My point is that 50% reduction in compensation per EC261/2004 Article 7(c) only applies if *rerouting was offered*. It was not. Reading the text from here. Maybe I'm reading it wrong.

UKtravelbear

Yes you are reading it wrong.

The original regulation - as per your link- does not provide for compensation for Delays just 'assistance' under article 8 and 9.

Article 6 (delay) does not reference Article 7 (compensation) at all.

The 1/2 compensation for re-routing applied originally for cancellations.

The right to compensation for delays was as a result of a European Court Ruling.

For a flight of 3,500km or more full payment is for flights delayed by 4 hours or more. It is halved for delays between 3 hours and 3 hours 59 minutes. Unless the delay is due to weather or ATC or the other exemptions.

see 11.2 in Post 1 of this thread

from the circumstances of what you have posted BA are correctly interpreting the regulation.

Btw it would have helped if you posted the accurate delay length in the first place.

djmp

I see, thanks for the clarification.