Well as mentioned above, I would keep dispassionate about this and take the whole issue in entirely clinical terms. If you end up doing MCOL then you just stick to the facts, present them as you know best via the Statement of Truth process and it will then be up to BA to present their evidence and up to the court to rule on what is correct. It is the airline's responsibility to provide proof of the 60 hour email aspect, and I would suggest that is near impossible to do in this digital. However I would urge you to stick to the facts, keep it short and straightforward, don't use emotion and keep it as simple as possible. Use the advice in post 1 on how to proceed, make a formal demand for what you think you are owed, give 16 days and then move to MCOL. CEDR may be OK but it's quite difficult for me to make out exactly what happened in your case so I can't be certain about that. The one thing that never, ever works is hassling BA with multiple case references, you are wasting your time.

Two can play hardball, and in this case MCOL would be better since they will have to present their timings to you well before any hearing. You have had the "we won't do anything" email, so while it would probably be a good idea to give 16 days notice of action, in reality you don't now need to do this and can go straight to MCOL given the last reply. In the process you give your timings are precisely as you have them. Take a screenshot now of the text messages and times, and just give the evidence as provided. Again no point using too much emotion, the facts alone should carry your case since there was more that BA could have done to have avoided the delay.

I've already written up a very calm, factual letter before action so I'll send it off just on the off chance it finds someone more helpful than my current automaton! I'm in Scotland so the small claims procedure is different but same theory!

Assuming your parents were on a single ticket to LAX, then I think you have a good case for EC261, from what you have provided, it seems to be in scope. Just follow the process in post 1, it may not be controversial if it was technical. They need to make the claim themselves, though if they share a married name one parent can claim for both. Effectively one of the advantages of using a European airline in this circumstance is that it gives you protections that you don't get from other airlines such as Emirates.

Thank you very much corporate-wage-slave for your reply, I really appreciate your time and advice. I will follow up and let the forum know of the results.

Flight Cancellation - expenses/comp ?
 

The BA224 MSY to LHR was cancelled today, leaving us stranded in New Orleans. Initially, we accepted rerouted flights via Charlotte, but afterwards we checked online and realised it was a poor replacement (i.e. Originally direct CW, replaced with 2 hour internal economy and Business transatlantic). We called back and BA were initially unhelpful but then agreed to put us on the direct flight tomorrow.

Will we be entitled to have the extra night's hotel cost reimbursed? I have read their rules online and they seem a bit 'wooly'. I believe that the flight was cancelled as the incoming flight went technical.

You would need to confirm the reason for the cancellation. If the plane did go tech and you are on a BA marketed and BA operated flight you should have been given options for expenses at the very least and the usual EU compensation.

You should be able to claim hotel and right to care expenses, see the EC261 thread in the Dashboard. The general guideline for hotels is £200 per room per night, but that's BA's guideline, there is no particular limit in the Regulation. Taxi fares should also come in at £50 or less too, same principle, but in MSY that should hopefully be OK. The fact you were offered rebooking and then changed your mind is a complication here, since I can't be certain BA would pay in that circumstance, but I know they have in similar cases (just make your claim statement as brief as possible!). CLT and then AA would not have been too bad in my view, the AA product is a good one over the Atlantic.

It is indeed a technical cancellation, so Article 7 is definitely payable on top, unless the AA service would have got you to London within 3 hours of the BA schedule.

Given that the AA A330 business seat is better than BA CW I would have taken the reroute unless I actually wanted the extra day in MSY for an extended holiday. As CWS says BA would normally pay out for the extra hotel no problem at all, if they had suggested you take the BA flight the next day, however as they offered you an option and you requested to wait another day they may put up a bit of resistance, although I suspect they will cough up eventually. The thing that works in your favour here is the domestic flight in Y because you can argue that the replacement offered was not in the same travel class ("comparable conditions") and therefore it was reasonable to wait for the next BA flight.

Thanks for your replies everyone. We shall make a claim and see what happens.

To be honest, it was the economy internal flight that I was dreading. We splurged this year on CW and I was really looking forward to the trip home and this just ruined it for me. As a large person, the thought of two hours in economy and flight connections when I had looked forward to luxury, direct, the whole way home was not acceptable. I do LOTS of research on planes, seats and leg room before booking but BA were really pushing to accept the first flights that it all unnerved me... first world problems I know!

Lesson here is never accept things which you are not happy with - Just take them down for later claim if need be so you remember the timings of offered flights etc... Once you accept a re-route the BA practice is in general not to allow another change (you were sort of lucky here!)

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/briti...ent-delay.html

Here is your link to the outbound delay that shows the delay as being attributed to technical reasons. As this was an operational decision of BA to cancel a departure from their main base without having a spare aircraft available to operate the flight as planned, you'll be eligible to claim from BA EUR600 per passenger. In addition to the compensation for the time you're delayed, you can claim reasonable expenses for meals at meal times (breakfast, lunch, dinner) and overnight hotel accommodation unless these have already been provided by the airline. Reasonable is a grey area - some peoples idea of reasonable will be a suite at the Ritz and a gout inducing gastronomy splurge. If you have to fend for yourself aim in the region of upto £200 for your accommodation per single/couple travelling and upto £25 per person per meal time during the delay and keep al your receipts. Also your taxi receipts from airport to hotel and vice versa.

Since the request to be rebooked the following day was made by you it's by no means obvious that you are entitled to reimbursement of your hotel (or any other care).

It's usually very difficult to get last minute AA First seats on IRROPS because by that time they have confirmed upgrades for their own status holders on their waitlist. Given that the flight is only 90 minutes I think I'd have taken the routing via CLT and the decent AA service to London. Good luck with your claim. Please report back with the outcome as it may help others.

The two times my flight's been cancelled (one strike, one weather), I've called up to confirm I'm booked on to a flight the next day, then simply booked my own hotel and sent my receipts for that and dinner to BA. Both times they were refunded very quickly and politely with no fuss - one was within the last year, in case that's relevant.

BA9 13.02.17 delay thoughts
 

Hi everyone. First time here. A year to the day I arrived over 3 hours late at BKK on BA9 13.02.17. I had been notfied by BA SMS several hours before departure that flight would be delayed. Whilst in terminal I noted departures board and no other flights appeared significantly delayed. On boarding, pilot apologised citing maintenance issues and lack of replacement 777s at LHR at this time. On claiming delay compensation I was bemusingly informed it was an ATC issue. On running Bott it encouraged a claim to be put forward. Any experienced thoughts would be welcome. Regards.

Welcome to Flyertalk johnnie_travel, welcome to the BA forum. It's good to see you here, and I very much hope we will see you elsewhere in this forum too.

I think you can go ahead with pursuing a claim under your own steam based on what the captain told you. Make a good note of what s/he said, to the best of your recollection, and work on the basis of that in terms of processing your claim through the steps in the first post of this thread. Many people have done this successfully so I wouldn't personally advise using a claims agency. The statement very much rings true, since we've seen elsewhere in the forum that BA are right on the edge in terms of equipment availability, and have been for some months, thanks to 787 updates being required and some 777 mechanical issues at both LHR and LGW. 777s are being transferred between LGW and LHR, which isn't so unusual but LGW is having more longhaul cancellations than normal as a result.

At 3 hours, you would be due EUR 300. If you pay 25% of that to Bott, you will have EUR 225 when all is done. The question to you is whether it is worth EUR 75 to you to send BA a follow up in the form of a Letter Before Action (form on the MCOL website) which is clear and to the point and then followed with an MCOL action if your Letter is unavailing. You may always turn to Bott.

My letter would simply provide the e-ticket number, the routing, the scheduled and actual arrival time at BKK, and the Captain's statement to passengers that this was occasioned by mechanical delays. Leave it at that. Simply ask for EUR 300 and advise that you will provide bank details on request.

BA may well try to hang its hat on ATC delays whilst shuffling between LGW and LHR, but it may abandon that in any event or make you an offer you find acceptable.

I'm in the process of taking BA to Small claims. Which is the recommended way of serving the particulars of the claim - BA website or snail mail?

It doesn't greatly matter, but if you use the Royal Mail with some recorded delivery option then you know that someone has signed for it on a given date. I presume this is for the 16 day letter before action, if so then normally there isn't a reply to that, and on day 17 you press the MCOL buttons.

Thanks for the advice. I have issued the claim now. I checked the box saying I will send the particulars of the claim. So that's what I'm doing now.

Ah, OK, not everyone does that (and then BA puts a snarky note in to the court to highlight that fact, which makes me smile given normally the communication process is usually somewhat lopsided). Yes in that case, send them to BA via post and recorded delivery. And / or consider drawing up a Skeleton argument, a 1 or 2 page bullet pointed summary, suitable for a judge to understand the background and the law points upon which you are relying. It's not a requirement, but it make life easier for everyone.

Your case is about a MF strike involving MF crew, so be aware that this is quite edgy stuff. Bott and Co is considering doing a test case, apparently, but I've not seen any evidence of this yet.

This talk of Bott etc makes me wonder how reliable their predictors of success are. If they say they think you have a valid claim, is that generally a good indication?

CEDR for cancelled 787 flight to Sjc not successful on the grounds of extraordinary circumstances. This despite not being called that in BA's initial defence. Disappointed although not suprised! I will try the next step to take it through to a conclusion and see what happens. RR still say it's a wear and tear issue not a hidden defect. Worth a punt.

From what I read, many of these agencies tend to take on "slam dunk" cases and avoid any with grey areass.

If Bott said 'yes' online then it should be strait forward.

Thanks for that feedback. That RR line, if submitted to CEDR, would strike me as a very relevant point but I guess that's also linked into some sort of emergency recall process. If it's been through CEDR then my suspicion is that you will need to put a lot of thought into constructing the MCOL approach.

Bott is a good measure because it has its own resources and thus money on the line. If it does not prevail, it does not make any money. If it does that enough, it will become insolvent.

This is not to say that there is not some kook judge somewhere who on a given day won't go your way. But, it is a good belleweather as to the result you will see for your time and effort.

Maybe a silly question but when Bott and Co or MCOL cases succeed, do BA only have to pay the compensation or do BA also incur courts costs and other charges ?? It seems some sort of penalty/ deterrent is requires to make BA more proactive with their responses and to fully substantiate the reason for the cancellation or delay from the onset. BA are privy to the circumstances and if they know a passenger has a legitimate case why not simply pay what is due or we end up playing bluff wasting ever bodies time and money. It would be interesting if the statistics of how many legitimate claims BA turned down were eventually paid up and made public. Maybe a independent 3rd party is needed where airlines have to submit supportive documents for audit and the results made freely available.

Yes, if BA are on the losing side of the argument they have to pay the court costs as well as the compensation, as well as a limited range of the complainants costs too (e.g. postage and photocopying, potentially interest). If the claimant loses then they lose whatever they have sunk into court fees already but are rarely pinged for additional costs. The exception is if the complainant doesn't turn up in court, then BA has in the past asked the judge for their costs to be recovered and judges may (or may not) ping £250 or so on to the complainant - judges are not impressed when this happens. However, with that exception apart, if it gets to a court hearing, and in particular if BA need supporting legal advice, the costs for the airline are pretty significant and not recoverable regardless of outcome, and in theory that's quite a deterrent.

The regulator for this area is the CAA - which has a fairly mixed record in this area, putting it politely. It set up ADR / CEDR so that it didn't get snowed under with the minutae of cases, and occasionally has funded legal fees for passengers against airlines not in the ADR.

Wanted to share my ongoing experience around BA rejecting my request for compensation after ending up in the wrong country and being delayed over 24 hours, back in December. I was on a flight from DXB-LHR, a completley routine flight until around 45 minutes before we were due to land, the captain announced he is very sorry but due to there being nowhere to park the aircraft at LHR, the flight is turning around and diverting to France (CDG), and is being cancelled. The usual woeful experience on the ground then followed, I stayed at CDG for the night and eventually flew back to LHR on the same aircraft with the same crew the following evening, a full 24 hours later.

BA rejected my claim for EC261 compensation with a blanket response stating the delay was caused due to operational circumstances outside their control, blaming the weather, de-icing problems and earlier air traffic control restrictions. I responded, rejecting this, and pointing out that the allocation of parking spaces for aircraft is the airline's responsibility, as is the de-icing operation which failed and they blamed as the knock-on reason. I also pointed out that there are publically accessable records which show, at the precise time we were scheduled to land and directly thereafter, there were many other aircraft operating, both landing and taking off (including BA aircraft) from LHR. I also pointed out that snowfall in the UK in August would be extraordinary. In December it is not.

BA responded again, saying they don't comment on other airline's operations but safety is their top priority, and the delay was caused by extraordinary circumstances because they had de-icing problems earlier in the day, and also their third party supplier ran out of supplies (they don't mention who, or what ran out). You might notice by this point they still have not addressed the issue of parking allocation and have so far avoided mentioning it in their responses.

The captain articulatley explained to us, as we were flying back across the English channel, the reason we could not land was because the allocation of parking spaces for the incoming aircraft had failed. My perception therefore is that this is not an extraordinary event, but an operational failure of BA which appears to have been caused by another earlier operational failure, when they attempted to de-ice their aircraft but it went wrong and ended up in a rather big mess. The relaibility of BA's third party suppliers is not my concern, I am a customer of BA and they are responsible for delivering the service using reliable partners.

I wonder, was anybody else here caught up by the "parking space issue" and have they got BA to agree to EC compensation? I'm also wondering what the most effective next step is. Any and all ideas welcomed! Many thanks.

Welcome to Flyertalk JNU84, and welcome to the BA Board, though the circumstances that brought you here sound quite difficult, reading between the lines.

That day a number of aircraft were diverted, I'm sure you have seen the thread elsewhere in this forum where BA struggled to operate the airport and there were diversions all over the show. There are going to be two schools of thought here, and I'll present them both. Firstly there was a weather event at the time, and that did lead to disruption. Broadly speaking weather and ATC related delays don't give rise to Article 7 payments, moreover when you are in diversion category - something no airline would willingly want to do - then your chances of getting EC261 are not looking very good.

The other perspective is that there are plenty of people - including some who work at LHR - who feel that BA's own lack of resourcing contributed to the problems, and that in particular BA could / should have done more to avoid the pile up with de-icing. On later bad weather days BA tried to head this off with proactive cancellations, your particular day was one where they didn't do these proactive cancellations, for reasons which have not been explained. The wording of EC261 sets quite a high bar for the airline and you may be able to make a persuasive case for why not all reasonable measures were taken in your case. The Regulation is framed in terms of customer protection rather than keeping airlines in a good place.

If you are happy with the risk, given the Regulation's wording does classify "meteorological conditions incompatible with the operation of the flight concerned" as out of scope, then you need to consider a carefully drafted MCOL submission, based on the steps outlined in post 1. I would not take this to CEDR, they would be better if it was a totally overwhelming case and my perception is that this is not in that category. I'm not aware of anyone else being successful with EC261 for the diversions that day, there again it was fairly recent and so the evidence is perhaps not there yet. Plus some people get very shy about it!

I simply don't see this as successful. There is only so far any commercially viable business can go to plan and deal with every event which might occur. At LHR, BA simply is not like other carriers. It is the worldwide hub and that unfortunately means that when the LON airspace is affected, BA is affected more than others. Same for DL at ATL, LH at FRA and AA at DFW.

This is one to pursue if you have time and understand that it may be for naught.

I think it's marginal cases like this where it is worth looking towards Bott & Co. Sure there is a cost but I think otherwise your case is highly debatable as weather gives an obvious starting argument for BA to put forward.

If Bott won't take it, then I would take it on the chin and move on.

Thanks all, I have submitted a claim and will let you know how it turns out!

Just an update - I submitted the MCOL, after a while BA's legal department emailed asking if I'd settle before it went to the judgement stage (without them accepting liability), which I did. I've now had my expenses paid.

So, it's cost BA more money (due to the court fees), cost them staff time (both the call centre and legal departments), and I'll now try to avoid BA in the future. It'd surely have been best to pay up straight away for a cost they agreed to pay in the first place!

Thanks for the guidance.

Well quite - it's better business in the long-term to do the right thing. Glad you got it sorted though, will PM my bank details for my cut :D