Jerseylily2

Great summary CWS. Essentially what I was thinking but I have 22 BA sectors this year so perhaps I will give them the opportunity to delight me in other ways....

LSunbury

Follow up question on a claim for a BOS-LHR where the plane went tech and my niece and friend were rebooked by BA on a Virgin flight arriving (as scheduled) 4 hours+ after original due time.

Initially refused, response to second attempt is 'as you didn't travel on the delayed flight with us, we're not liable for a compensation payment'.

Plan to go to CEDR, but wanted to check we are good to go with this?

simons1

Personally I prefer the MCOL route.

Looks like a clear cut case to me. If the BA flight was cancelled then that provision applies, otherwise you were delayed more than 4 hours anyway.

corporate-wage-slave

MCOL may be quicker at the moment, but it needs careful attention to detail and payment of fees, which would be recoverable. Because from the information provided it seems clear-cut then I would think CEDR would be OK, since I suspect payment will be made as soon as someone more experienced on the BA side works out that the reason for not flying BA was because BA re-routed the passengers. Your two options are to call BA Customer Relations in the afternoon, though it may require multiple attempts; alternatively ask for a deadlock letter for CEDR "since this is purely down to BA actions and therefore clearly in scope for Article 7 under Wallentin-Hermann (CJEU Case C-549/07)". The reference to specific jargon will normally push the complaint over to someone more qualified. My guess as to why this happened is that actually the flight did run, but because the claimants weren't on that particular flight someone in BA decided they hadn't travelled at all.

Often1

As you are a UK resident, why not take advantage of MCOL? I would have sent the follow-up in the form of a Letter Before Action (form on the MCOL) website and then gone straight to MCOL when the response she received arrived. You can still do this. Simply send a Letter Before Action and she will either receive her compensation or you can file.

As an aside, how late did the BA flight arrive? If it also arrived at 4+, the response makes even less sense.

simons1

Sadly, I wonder how many less experienced travellers would give up what they are entitled to when faced with BA's prevarication and incompetence.

LSunbury

My niece and her friend were the travellers, and are UK residents. She is young and the MCOL option may seem a bit intimdating, CEDR probably less so. I have also never done either so we are not as confident as many on here!

We believe the original BA flight arrived more than 6 hours late.

Thanks to all for your help with this - much appreciated!
.

serfty

I doubt it's really incompetence, prevarication, yes.

I sense an underlying theme indicating a deliberate process that may very well indeed significantly reduce the actual amounts that get paid to PAX.

rapidex

I would second this. Being a serial claimant of EU261 I sense I get offered payment immediately, whereas 1st time claimants get messed around. But then I always like a conspiracy theory as well.

serfty

No conspiracy - just processes developed in an endeavour to reduce overall payout totals. (Step one - assume the claimant knows little and treat them as such.)

Often1

One fairly recent study estimated that less than 2% of valid EC 261/2004 claims are ever made. That is EU-wide and may include very minor "duty of care" claims, but as a starting point, that number gets whittled down by people who claim and are initially denied.

The other side of this is that payments are ultimately made from ticket revenues and if the cost of compensation were increased 50-fold, the impact on air fares would likely be quite substantial. Inasmuch as the original purpose of the Regulation was to encourage better operational performance, that might be a good thing, but the evolution of the Regulation into what it has become, e.g., compensation in situations where there is little to nothing which the carrier could have done better under reasonable circumstances, this would become a punitive tax on EU businesses who purchase most of the volume by EUR volume.

zsc

Wanted to seek some feedback - understand that I would have to wait a while for them to get back to me (initial rejection emailed 12 March).

During the BotE weather cancellations I was due to fly LCY-MAN 3 March night. Flight was cancelled earlier in the day and I was rebooked onto BA1370 departing LHR 0950. At the gate we were told that no cabin crew were available to serve the flight and was left without a gate agent as they rotated to serve another. Hours went by, eventually one came back and made an effort to procure the refreshment vouchers for passengers. Between 0950 and our eventual departure, 3 other flights took off to MAN without incident:

BA1386 (departed 0847 3-Mar)
BA1390 (departed 1124 3-Mar)
BA1394 (departed 1406 3-Mar)

I attempted to be rebooked onto 1390 and 1394 but was told to return to gate. Eventually 1370 departed at 1503hrs. The initial rejection was "shortage of cabin crew due to adverse weather conditions which prevented the aircraft operating as scheduled". My argument was based on two issues: their claim of cabin crew shortage when previous and subsequent flights were served, and secondly, their failure to rebook me onto a flight that would not have resulted in >4 hours delay.

Just wanted a sanity check here, in case I missed out on anything, before I prepare to take this case further. Genuinely unhappy with the way this was handled.

corporate-wage-slave

In terms of what BA will do, I can't see them paying for any delays during this Beast time window unless an aircraft went technical or something clearly not weather related. I suspect there is blanket decline during this time period. They have an argument which is credible. You too clearly have an argument, which will hinge on BA's failure to rebook you (did they give a reason for refusing? That may be relevant here, e.g. if they had a long Standby list) - there was more they could do to mitigate the delay. So if you want to take this further I suspect that you will have to at least start an MCOL process, and possibly go all the way with it. A third point to add to your list is that LHR being the home of BA and with large numbers of crew based there, running out of crew seems inept.

zsc

Was told then that the agents couldn't do much as the flight was placed on hold (?). Valid point about LHR being BA's home ground - ironically, our gate was opposite the crew entry/exit doors & each time they opened it led us to believe we were getting the crew needed to operate our flight (gate A22, IIRC).

simons1

I wish you luck but would rate your chances as less than 5%.

BA will say that the lack of crew for your flight was due to rostering issues caused by the weather - not unreasonable. If challenged on later flights leaving first they will say it was because they wanted to delay as few people as possible - again not unreasonable.

On the rebooking they will say that they expected a crew to become available and in any case there was not sufficient capacity on later flights to rebook everyone.

Unfortunately when weather is involved the airline holds all the aces.