sledge1

Thanks Corporate Wage Slave .

This basically confirms BA are either using stalling tactics with erroneous responses to deliberately deter passenger's pursuing claims or that BA staff responding are not familiar with EC261 which is worrying and requires BA upper management intervention.to implement proper staff training. or replacement with qualified staff to correctly interface with passengers. BA repeated lack of response to substantiate/evade passengers questions and give erroneous replies lacks all credibility and is just demonstrates very poor Customer Service. Either way it affects BA reputation as a carrier. .

FYI The agent sent me a e mail 14 hours before the flight was cancelled and advised it was rescheduled for the following day but no cancellation E mail was ever received from BA. I immediately went to the BA Abu Dhabi office for explanation and rescheduled it for a later flight as the change was not convenient and then got a revised booking from BA via email 12 hours before the flight .which subsequently got mixed up. Thanks again but already e mailed CEDR on 18 Feb so lets see how they respond.

corporate-wage-slave

CEDR maybe a reasonable approach here for the cancellation non-notification, I think that's fairly robust; the issue of wear-and-tear versus manufacturer's recall is potentially more problematic and would send me MCOL-wards. For CEDR you can fill the forms in online and submit, so long as you are either have a deadlock letter from BA (which you can request) or you are past 8 weeks from your first date of complaint. Last year's thread has a lot of experiences on CEDR mentioned in it, so that may be worth a peruse. CEDR are currently overloaded so it's best to stick to the process rather than trying to have a dialogue, either way it's likely to take a while.

MichelleUK1

Just a quick update to let you know how we got on!

We made an online application to BA for expenses and EC261 compensation. Six days later, we received an offer to pay 100% of our expenses and 50% of the compensation. They based the compensation on the flights that we refused on AA. Although the flights would have got us into Heathrow earlier, it would have meant that we needed to leave nearly 4 hours earlier, hence the entitlement to 50%.

We replied that we did not feel that the offered flights were ‘under comparable transport conditions’ and that we should be due the 100% compensation. We then listed the reasons (Direct v indirect, 25% of flight time in reduced width seats in domestic US economy v 100% Club World, risk of missed connection/missed luggage, flights were nearly 4 hours earlier, meaning we would have needed to pack up and leave the hotel within the next hour, flying into terminal 3 rather than terminal 5, need for larger seat due to physical and medical issues).

BA replied a few hours later saying the following:

“The alternative flights we offered you both when your original flight was cancelled would be considered comparable in court therefore we have based your claim for compensation on these flights. We had offered you the same mode of transport, on the same day and the long haul flight was in the same cabin as the one you originally booked. I'm afraid I'm unable to increase your compensation amount. I'm sorry to disappoint you.”

On reflection, we have decided to accept the offer. We did get to fly home on the direct flight, albeit 24 hours later and BA will pay our hotel and food expenses. The £530 (Eur. 600) will cover the cost of the extra one day unpaid leave and extra cattery expenses. So, ultimately, we have not lost anything financially, just had a stressful end to lovely holiday!

Thanks again to everyone for your advice.

corporate-wage-slave

This is very much open to question. They have a point that it can be argued, given that the AA domestic sector is very short (shorter than the timetable too) and was a means to an end which was essentially in business class, but I think it's by no means certain a judge would agree with that quote. However you would certainly have been able to argue for some downgrade refund for that sector, to complicate matters further. Against that was the issue of you accepting the offer, briefly. So all in all I can see why you would accept the offer, which isn't manifestly unfair, to save yourself the hassle of chasing the remaining (2x300=) 600€. Different passengers may reach a different conclusion however.

Thanks for reporting back, not everyone does that.

YYZ_TVGuy

Hello all, thought I'd add to the "experiences" list as this is my first 261.

I think my case is fairly straightforward. I showed up for the GVA-LHR portion of a GVA-LHR-YUL and return ticket. Booked in WTP+, UuA to CW - which turned out not to mean a thing, which I thought quite nice coming from a Star background! Boarding started, then abruptly stopped (never seen that in 500+ flights), gate door closed. People in the jetway for 45 minutes. Weird. Finally a whisper of, "do you know how to do a mass-deboarding?" from the GAs. Everyone comes back to the gate and the captain comes out to apologize (class act, seriously) personally for the HVAC problem on the plane. Joe Mechanic walks around and pokes his head in the APU (have the picture) for a couple hours and eventually he MELs the APU and we leave.

I misconnect at LHR along with all the snow issues (Dec 11). Fun. After a 2hr wait in the Club line i'm rebooked on AC the following day, in J, and head off for the Hilton T5. I've been told they've no godly idea where my bag is.

So arrived ~20hrs late at final destination (YUL). 600€ I presume. I filled out the form on ba.com today and described the situation (much more briefly) and asking for the 600€ and the tier points / avios that didn't credit for the LHR-YUL sector.

I can't use the form for the automated avios credit, as it doesn't like my ticket number. That may be due to the fact my middle name is on the ticket (credit card crap) where I don't use it normally or on my BAEC account. We'll see how that goes.

corporate-wage-slave

It may be straightforward, but we don't have enough information here to be totally sure: the snow event may well rule out EC261 in certain circumstances and if that is what stopped from being just 3 to 4 hours late then it may get sticky. So what we would need to know is
- how late were you into LHR (what was the actual time of arrival?)
- had there been no weather event, could you theoretically got to YUL within x hours?

YYZ_TVGuy

As I said, the delay was NOTHING to do with the snow event. They'd already cancelled 1/2 the GVA-LHRs of the day (NOT my flight) - this one was to proceed. The plane went tech, period. We were boarding when they found out the HVAC bit of the APU was b0rked.

I arrived at LHR at the moment the YUL flight closed (status changed between wheels down and door opening). But it doesn't matter, does it? I was 20 hours late to YUL.

golfmad

In order to provide the best advice it would be helpful if you answered the questions posed above. Had there been no weather event and if the other GVA-LHR flights had been operating to schedule would you have had a decent chance to make your connection once your aircraft was deemed unserviceable? If so, there's an argument that the weather event contributed to your missed connection.

corporate-wage-slave

It may well not matter, but there are some details that are needed to be sure about that. My apologies that my previous post was unclear, let me try and put it this way, timings are hypothetical:
1) You were due into LHR at 12:00 and you were then due to depart 13:15 to YUL.
2) You actually arrived into T5 at 13:00 so could not make the YUL flight.
3) BA would have rebooked you on to the 14:30 Air Canada service instead which would get you into YUL one hour late.
4) BA failing that would have rebooked on a combination of BA and AA to get you to YUL 3 hours 30 minutes late.
5) Snow event prevented 3 or 4 from being used.
In that scenario BA may have grounds for denying any compensation, (point 3) or some compensation (point 4) the grounds for which could be argued against, depending on a heap of other details. I hope that's clearer now. In essence if there are two factors causing a delay you may need to split the delay timing between the two components, hence the "details matter" mantra.

Now it's always easy to over complicate this, something this thread often does, so indeed it's best to see what comes out from the form you have already submitted.

YYZ_TVGuy

Ah ok. No I was booked on the BA service at 16:45 which leaves AFTER the AC service. There was no option to get to YUL that evening.

YYZ_TVGuy

Wow, I'm blown away. Filled out the form Saturday, received this in my inbox this morning:

*pushes Staples red button* That was easy.

thegrailer

Hello -

I'm here with EC261/2004 questions b/c it's a UK-type question and I am hoping someone here has some info

A couple of ATC questions
1. Is UK ATC data proprietary? The airline states it has "secret" (private) ATC data and that data proves extraordinary circumstances. The airline stated that it would provide the data to CAA just not to the passenger.
2. Follow up to 1 --- US FAA ATC data can be found online, does the UK provide similar data?

To sum up, I am trying to get Feb 11 ATC data for MAN. Is that possible?

Thanks
Cheers

AdBoy

Does anyone know the latest on crew sickness away from base? Davies v BA seems to be a very clear case/precedent but then I'm confused by this case: Sudden illness constitutes ?extraordinary circumstances? for the purposes of Regulation 261/2004 | Kennedys and also this one: https://www.theguardian.com/money/20...ensation-claim

SinoBritAsia

BA31 to Hong Kong will be almost 4 hours late today - Thursday - flown by G-XLEF from Los Angeles. The delay seems to stem from the outbound LAX flight from LHR going out almost 6 hours late on Tuesday.

In these circumstances, is the knock-on effect from weather enough to be considered extraordinary circumstances/weather for BA to say no to EC261?

Thanks in advance all.

KARFA