corporate-wage-slave

Q1: if you are able to accept the money without accepting the CEDR's opinion then I would do so, I must admit I can't quite work out from your question what the implication of accepting CEDR's verdict is in terms of MCOL. If necessary ring up CEDR and ask them.
Q2: Homework means submitting a properly detailed submission respecting the basic requirements of MCOL and no schoolboy howlers. BA are surprisingly picky about these things, they go through the wording and (e.g.) if your claim was against BACF rather than BA, they point that out, even though the same legal team in the same office handles both BA and BACF. I think there is enough information in this thread on how to prepare MCOL, but the very first stage is to tell BA exactly what you are seeking, and give them a reasonable time to agree to this, 16 days, as indicated in the initial posts.

If Mennens (and the distance quotient) in not mentioned at all in the CEDR ruling then I suppose there is an option of pointing this out to CEDR to see if this changes their verdict, but I have no idea how successful that will be.

jaffaq

Thanks, I'll have a go claiming anyway. I'm almost certain they said it was caused by the baggage handlers, but they might have said it was found by the baggage handlers.

gutt3d

Thanks for this.

Q1 - I don't think BA will pay anything unless I accept the CEDR decision. BA are/were adamant that I have to claim from Expedia, and CEDR instead told them to pay me. Hence to get the £461 I suspect I'd need to accept CEDR. However if I accept CEDR would that in any way go against me in MCOL. By this I mean: if I've accepted CEDR, could BA the argue that I've agreed with the amount and that they don't need to pay any more? That's my concern, at least - however I don't yet know how MCOL works (so apologies if my question around this sounds daft).

In fact CEDR did mention Mennens. They say that Mennens is only for the price of the ticket, with the price of the ticket for the outbound sector taken to be the £615 that BA claim. The proof BA submitted to CEDR was some text apparently copied from an email from the "refunds team", which I've copied here for ref:

"Hi Interline Team
PNR xxxxxx
Ticket xxx-xxxxxxxxxx
Original issuer is Iberia Airlines therefore we will not be able process downgrade refund.
EU comp on IB refund details
Charm Case Ref: xxxxxxxxx
Airline: IB
Value: GBP461.25
Ticket Number: xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Account No: 7866/95041
Sector: BA289 LHR/PHX 07MAY17
Please handle the claim at your end
Regards,
British Airways Global Refunds"

BA then followed up with:

"Our Refunds Team have advised that the fare for the LHR-PHX sector was
£615.00, 75% of this is £461.25. We therefore believe this amount should be
refunded."

Jonrross

My parents were on a FCO>LHR>ABZ>KOI yesterday. There was a tight connection (around 1 hour at LHR), and the arriving flight was about 20 mins late arriving (due to the weather at LHR). They passed through immigration very quickly and got to the security but were turned away due to T5 conformance. The BA rep actually called the gate who said something along the lines of "no problem let them through, we're a bit delayed anyway". But when he called whoever else was required to change the system to let them through they would not do it. Hence my parents missed the ABZ flight, and KOI and ended up in a hotel in EDI last night. It is worth noting another passenger in a wheelchair was quickly whisked through by their escorts and presumably made the flight. My parents made it clear they would be happy to run to the plane. The re-ticketing agents also said it "was always happening". Is there a valid case for EC261 compensation in this case? BA did not do everything in their power to allow the connection to happen. You look at how Cathay etc do it in HKG with agents lined up at the gate to quickly escort you to your next plane to stop problems like this happening. It does not seem like the delay was purely down to the weather, but self imposed rules and regs at T5.

corporate-wage-slave

And I'm afraid I still unclear as to the ramifications. Let me give some scenarios to illustrate why I am unclear. For example, in order to get the £461, BA put in front of you a 35 page agreement that the proposed £461 is in full and final settlement of your claim, then signing it would have negative ramifications at MCOL level. At the other extreme if BA just want you to sign a receipt to say "I've received £461", then there is no MCOL issue. Hence my uncertainty. But if you want a broad brush answer to the non specific circumstances, then very generally it's OK to accept a payment so long as you make it clear that you believe that an error has been made in the process and therefore will be pursuing the rest of the amount outstanding.

And an error must have been made here: CEDR referred to Mennens, but that is based on a whole ticket approach, yet from the snippet above BA only provided a one leg fare (which should also have been challenged due to the components which were not in that fare). You can't meaningful apply a part distance quotient on a single leg fare, or rather if it was 100% then the rest of Mennens makes zero sense.

corporate-wage-slave

Potentially yes, but it's going to be tricky and BA will have a strong argument against it. You would have to claim NOT for delay but for IDB, based on Rodríguez Cachafeiro v Iberia, and your case would hinge of the fact that the gate said it was possible and the Flight Management Unit (I'm guessing here, but I bet I am right) said no. Under the case mentioned above, and getting forensic detail of flight timings you may have a case. However you need forensic, detailed, precise information, you better get the screen shots now from BA.com, flightradar24, flightaware and Expertflyer since the information gets wiped out in the next few hours. And you need your parents to make a written statement as to exactly when they got to Conformance.

The problem is that the underlying figures used in EC261 is 45 minutes, and you would be presumably below this. I presume they were HBO, if checked baggage was involved then you're weakening your argument since FMU would have had a good reason to say it wasn't viable. Furthermore Heathrow did slow down the arrival rate yesterday due to weather, I saw that happening. So I wouldn't want to give you a lot of hope here.

Jonrross

Thanks. Got the screenshots etc. They also made detailed notes at the time e.g. the exact time the phone calls were made, time they passed immigration etc. From the sites mentioned it looks like the incoming flight arrived at the gate at 15:42 and the departing flight left the gate at 16:39. Thanks for tip on making the claim for IDB. Unfortunately they did have checked baggage.

I don't think we'll get too upset by it - on the outbound LHR>FCO which I joint them on they upgraded us all to CE. Interestingly, they upgraded all 3 of us (me being Gold, them both being Blue) - I was on an Avios redemption and had linked the bookings through the gold line earlier in the week to get seats together. They said when they are linked like this they won't split up the group if one person is upgraded.

AbileneBound

Seems that CEDR have a backlog of cases. There was a deadline of 20th October for a response and they just got in touch to let me know they are delayed and are still looking at my claim. I'll keep you updated of any progress.

Mattt1

Just to provide some feedback, and although I can’t go into specifics, I would recommend the CEDR route to others.

Thanks to those who provided input previously.

Tobias-UK

Thanks Mattt1, are you able to tell us why you can't go into specifics?

serfty

I suspect confidentiality being a clause in the terms of settlement.

However, Mattt1 has six posts in this thread.

Here's the first of them: https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/brit...l#post28819349

Tobias-UK

Many thanks. I would still be interested in confirmation from @Mattt1 (and Matt1 please don't feel obligated to respond), CEDR adjudications are not normally subject to a confidentiality clause. The CEDR process is a relatively new proposition and it would be a helpful resource to gather as much information as possible to create a knowledge base to assist others who find themselves considering following the same route.

Once we have sufficient feedback from those who have used CEDR we will then be able to prepare a full guide to the CEDR process.

Tyzap

CEDR seem to have done their job and not been persuaded by BA's argument about the strike being an EC.

In the other cases that I have heard of, CEDR have found in the claimants favour in every case, except one, and that was possibly down to a procedural error by the claimant.

I have given them an occasion call, for clarification reasons, and found them to be both professional and knowledgable.

It's also not the first time recently that an airline has imposed a confidentiality clause on a successful claimant, if that's what has actually happened here.
I hope it's not the start of a trend!

The jury is still out on CEDR, but imo it's definitely a case of 'so far, so good'

KARFA

Have you got a reference to these to these CEDR cases?

Tim_T

yep, I got the same and then about a week late got a response that I met the requirements for CEDR and they had passed to BA for their defence. Now waiting for that.