mdj1

They’ll get 28 days after which I’ll just issue court proceeding.

as per the rules of issuing refunds.

steve170461

A colleague in ATC has told me BA had up to 45 a/c without a stand at one time on Sunday.

pauldb

Interestingly BA’s CoCs say:

9b3) If we:

• cancel a flight;
• delay a flight by five hours or more;
• fail to stop at your place of stopover or destination; or
• cause you to miss a connecting flight on which you hold a confirmed reservation;

you can choose one of the three remedies set out immediately below.

Remedy 1

We will carry you as soon as we can to the destination shown on your ticket on another of our scheduled services on which a seat is available in the class of service for which you have paid the fare. If we do this, we will not charge youextra and where necessary, will extend the validity period of your ticket.

Remedy 2

We will carry you to the destination shown on your ticket in the class of service for which you have paid the fare at a later date at your convenience and within the validity period of your ticket on another of our scheduled services on which a seat is available. If we do this, we will not charge you extra.

Remedy 3

We will give or obtain for you an involuntary fare refund.

We will give you additional assistance, such as compensation, refreshments and other care and reimbursement, if required to do so by any law which may apply. We will have no further liability to you.

pauldb

NWIFlyer

Well actually, the airline industry is better regulated than most other methods of public transport. If you had a train ticket and were unable to travel because of - say - overhead line damage, you'd have got the ticket cost refunded or allowed to travel at a different time, but hotel costs, alternative methods of transport or other consequential losses would have come wholly out of your own pocket. There are very, very few companies that take responsibility for consequential loss because it's too open ended. Even with EC261, you still have to act reasonably, and - unlikely though it is - a court or CEDR might just find that you didn't do that because you didn't take one of the two options offered, both of which were perfectly sensible.

That said, my view would be that the legal system probably would ultimately agree with you, but I guess you have to measure the hassle of getting to that stage and potentially having to spend a few hours in court when, as many have said, a calm and polite letter explaining the position and only the position might have brought quicker reimbursement.

mdj1

Interesting. It was a club europe avios redemption. So I'll have to look back at the costs.

mdj1

I know it's hugely regulated, but it doesn't stop the likes of BA trying to flout consumer law.

scottishpoet

I think that diverting you was the correct thing to do here rather than having sat on an aircraft on the ground at Heathrow for several hours waiting for a stand to clear.

For capacity reasons it seems that many airports were accepting diverted flights ( I saw at least one mention of Bournemouth and now I am seeing a flight from JFK that ended up in Dublin).

have you any reason to suspect that BA will not, in due course, refund your car hire costs?

HIDDY

I think you done well getting you and your entourage to London at such low cost. I'm sure BA will appreciate that.

Such a shame you had to accuse the crew of lying to you though.

mdj1

I agree. It was the sensible thing to do in light of the circumstances, not very convenient mind, but necessary, yes it would have been nicer to be close to home and yes I missed taking my 4 year old daughter to her first pantomime, but at least we got home... Eventually

I would have thought though that the would prioritise flights a bit better in this scenario, may be they did. but this is a relatively long short haul and they would have known that the crew were going to be out of hours with no possible chance of getting back that night even if conditions had improved. So why not divert a flight from somewhere closer? We were over Birmingham when we made the turn, what's that 15 minutes from landing?

https://uk.flightaware.com/live/flig...235Z/BIKF/EGNT

As for getting refunded, it's based on past experience and of the many, many posts on here and other websites.

Fingers crossed it will get authorised and processed without much issue, we'll just have to wait and see.

scottishpoet

Answer Id 6243 Updated 11/12/2017 03.56 PM (UK time)

We are very sorry for the disruption and frustration customers experienced as a result of the snow and poor weather in the UK and northern Europe on Sunday 10 December and Monday 11 December. If you wish to make an expenses claim for items such as hotel accommodation, food, ground transport, delayed baggage or telephone costs while you were delayed, please find full details of what you are able to claim for and how to make a claim here:

> What you can claim and how to claim expenses

We will be working as hard as we can to process all relevant ticket refund and expenses payments to customers as quickly as we can and have extra resources in place. However due to the volume of customers involved it may take a little longer than normal to process all of the payments. We are sorry for this and would like to reassure you that we will continue to meet the claims as soon as we can. Thank you for your support and understanding and once again please accept our apologies for the disruption you have faced.

DYKWIA

Other closer airports may have been full. I know MAN stopped accepting diversions mid-afternoon (apart from a couple of EK A380s).

scottishpoet

They would possibly not have been talking to Heathrow control until they got to Birmingham. That's probably when they were told that LHR was not accepting BA flights owning to the congestion already on the ground.

Then they would look at alternates. A 747 ended up in Dublin. A damn site less convenient for a lot more people.

I understand your frustration that you did not get home as quickly as you would have liked, but on reflection I think you will see you have had a good result.

There was a several hour wait for aircraft on the ground to get to a stand to disembark. You would rather have sat on the ground in Newcastle for a few hours waiting to see if you got into heathrow before they decided that they would not make the curfew?

I know of people who boarded an aircraft in glasgow some 3 hours late and then sat on it for 5 hours before the flight got cancelled.

mdj1

Just stating a fact, I don't know why they had to lie, I appreciate they just told us what they were told, but why lie!? It really annoys me.

If they'd explained, I'm sure people would have been much more accommodating rather than having a hundred or so disgruntled passengers.

Scenario.

Captain. Heathrow is closed sorry. we're going to newcastle.
Passengers. No it's not.
C. Sorry we lied, it's not closed, just terminal 5
P. = Peed off for being lied too.

Alternative.

C. Sorry guys, due to the weather we've got problems at heathrow and only one runway is open and there's just no where for us to unload you. We could get a slot but it might mean that we have to sit on the tarmac for anything up to x hours before we can get off the plane, and as we have very little in the way of refreshments on board, we've already been sitting in these seats for 5 hours and lets be honest, their not like your sofa at home!. I'm sure you'd much rather all get off somewhere else. BA will pay for your hotel, food and drink. Think of it as a little extension to your holiday on us! Tomorrow we'll get to you heathrow. Or you can make your own way and we'll reimburse any reasonable expenses. We're really sorry that we have to do this but I'm sure you understand that we don't take these decisions lightly.
P. Bummer, but at least he was honest with us....

It's the whole delivery that get's me, the, "we don't give a damn" attitude. I run a business and one that I like to think is very successful. We started just before the last downturn and we've seen growth every year. I've turned our first year of £16k in to a seven figure sum in ten years. Every week I get emails and calls from people on the way we treat our customers and the level of customer service we offer and how nice it is to deal with a company that values it's customers. Yes you can't please 100% of the people 100% of the time I know, but we always go above and beyond!

It's just a shame it's lost on BA.

On another note. One of the ladies I gave a lift to to London was already on a cancelled EZY flight earlier that day, they were rebooking people for WEDNESDAY. She purchased a last minute ticket with BA for £320. Would she be able to claim this back?

scottishpoet

I have no idea how much info the pilot would have had regarding the situation on the ground at Heathrow, other than that his aircraft would not be accepted.

I would imagine Heathrow ATC would not be having a 20 minute conversation with every aircraft to discuss in detail what was going on and what they should be doing and why.

I am not crystal clear how passengers who have been in the air for the last 2 and a half hours would know if Heathrow was closed or not as you approached Birmingham.

I can understand your level of frustration, but the pilot was possibly very busy working out his plans to deal with the situation and it was easier to say "heathrow is closed" and then focus on his new plan than have a lengthy discussion with the passengers about the situation on the ground.