sentosa

Thank you golfmad,
That is what I thought, but son was unsure.
I knew if I posted here I would get the correct answer.

Definitas

Definitas

corporate-wage-slave

For the Skeleton - a one or two page bullet pointed, cross referenced, short paragraphs document which describes briefly the events and the legal points you are making - see post 7 above. You only need this formally when you get close to a hearing date, so it's not the first thing that needs to be done, but if you have an overwhelming case then presenting it early can show BA's legal team that you are serious, and you can amend the Skeleton after seeing their defence. Skeletons are not mandatory at these sorts of hearing but most judges would breath a sigh of relief if one ended up on their desk.

Always make all points in your favour. The judge can use their discretion to discard weaker lines of argument, but they cannot bring new lines of argument on to the table if no-one has mentioned them. The fact that (a) other airlines were operating and that (b) BA could have rerouted you but didn't and (c) BA has a joint business arrangement so it doesn't even cost them anything to do it - is in any event a connected package of related arguments anyway.

Definitas

Thanks for the advice. Thus far I have just received the standard "brush off", mostly via twitter but have not had any reply to a registered letter I sent to Uxbridge a month ago. I sent a Twitter message yesterday asking if they had read the letter and looked at the screenshot images showing that other flights operated normally and that there was other availability which would have got us home on time. They didnt acknowledge the letter but just said nothing has changed their minds and hence my decision to go to court. The only other thing I am not sure of is mixed cabin classes. We were booked in CW (and had a complimentary upgrade to First). Availability on the earlier flights was only in WT but we were not offered this and I only realised that there was BA and AA availability by doing a ticket search after we had accepted the CW flights 24 hours later. However, my main hope is that I can prove cancellation was due to convenience rather than necessity. I intend to ask AA and UA to confirm arrival times of the LHR-ORD flights on the affected day (When I looked at the LHR board on the day, almost all long haul flights were operating normally including most of BA's flights to the US). Also, the "merged" BA flight operated normally. It will be interesting to find out if the merged flight was full (i.e. did they cancel the later flight as it was half empty).

corporate-wage-slave

If this was the 16 days letter before action noted at the start of the thread then you would be ok to proceed to MCOL now. However you do need to put in a specific claim for a specific amount, under EC261 (though you don't need to present the underlying basis in that letter).

Thereafter the basis of the action would appear to me:
- convenience to airline by combining aircraft. If one aircraft could operate, then so could two.
- insufficient resources to handle de-icing at LHR (a commercial choice)
- other services ran normally
- other options / routings could / should have been presented to you.
Counting against you is the straightforward fact that this was some of the worst weather at LHR for several years and there was quite widespread disruption to LHR and other airports that day. So I wouldn't want to give the impression that your case is ovewhelming.

Definitas

Thanks once again for the advice. It pretty much underpins my thoughts. I am at the point where I am so annoyed by BA's fairly blasé brush off and their failure to even reply to my recorded delivery letter to answer the points that I raised that I have decided to go to MCOL happy in the knowledge that I could loose my money. I would hate myself if I just let it go whereas if I loose my court fee (or even get lumbered with some costs), I will feel happy that I tried and failed.

Fernweh

~17 hour delay due to sensor fault / LHR noise restrictions / crew rest requirements

Hi everyone - my fiance and I have just had our first ever non-weather related delay, so I wanted to check a couple of things before putting in a compensation request. Apologies if these are basic questions, we've not been in this situation before!

So, this is what happened:

We were on BA 0877 from Tallinn to LHR, scheduled to depart at 21:25 on June 15th. Shortly after we got to the gate to board, the captain came to the gate and announced on the tannoy that there was a fault with one of the sensors on the plane, which an engineer was attempting to fix. We waited around for about an hour before the captain came back again to announce that the sensor fault had been repaired, but they now needed to do some tests to verify that the repair had been successful - this would involve running the engine, so they had to take the plane to a quiet part of the airport as they weren't allowed to do this at the gate.

We got some refreshment vouchers after this and continued to wait until about 23:30 - at this point we got an announcement saying that we were to collect our bags and go to the check-in desks to arrange hotel accommodation if necessary. We were bussed to the hotel and arrived at about 1am, then at 12 noon on the 16th we were bussed back to the airport and finally flew out of Tallinn at 14:00.

The captain made an announcement once we were on the plane, saying that they had managed to verify that the repair had been successful the previous evening, but by that time they wouldn't have been able to make it back to LHR before it closed due to noise restrictions (they had asked for permission to land late, but this was refused). They then had to wait at least 12 hours to give the crew the legally required 12 hours rest before we were able to fly. We arrived back into LHR at about 15:10 on the 16th.

My questions are:

1. I've seen a couple of posts on this thread saying that it's best to wait about a week before putting in a compensation claim rather than doing it straight away, but I must have missed where the reason for this was explained. Could someone please tell me why it's better to wait?

2. I'm slightly concerned that BA will come back and say that the majority of the delay (LHR noise restrictions and crew rest requirements) was out of their control, and therefore no compensation is due. Do you think this seems like a clear-cut case, or should I be preparing for a fight?

Thanks in advance for your help!

NWIFlyer

It’s better to wait on clear cut cases because sometimes it takes BA a few days to annotate the flight as “eligible for compensation”. Once that’s happened payouts become pretty much automatic once a correct claim is received.

I’d say the case itself is pretty much as straightforward as you’ll get - mechanical defect isn’t extraordinary, crew hours are within BA’s control so not extraordinary, and they fly into an airport with known restrictions on operating hours - so, again, not extraordinary. You shouldn’t have any issues with this one.

corporate-wage-slave

Well firstly thank you for putting in all the key details and also for touching base here while the relevant information is still in the public domain. In particular you seem to have got a good description of what the captain said, which is strangely missing in many other cases here. The layout of the dispatch information is a bit haphazard if you are not used to it, but it does state that due to an operational delay (ZO) you were over 16 hours late.I would hope this isn't controversial, the base cause was a technical error, there isn't a curfew at LHR (but there are cost implications) but crew hours is certainly a blocker. Still that isn't exceptional circumstances even if it can't be over-ridden.

The reason for holding back a bit is that if a claim gets to BA before the delay report gets into the system, the agents decline the claim since they can't see a reason to accept it. After a few days it becomes apparent what has happened and that once one person's claim is accepted, other claims tend to proceed quite quickly. This looks pretty much like a clear case to me, given what you have said,, so I don't think the second question really applies. However while your memory is fresh I would make a statement recalling all details and timings, exactly what was said by the captain and indeed other staff working with the flight. Date and time the statement and accumulate screenshots (e.g. BA.com - you must do this today). Just in case!

w3andw4d

Was on BA2036 MCO-LGW last night. Captain apologizes for the delay due to a tech fault.
VS scheduled to push back after us, but because of our tech delay, pushes and taxis ahead of us and gets airborne.
Meantime, MCO stops departures on our and previous VS route due to thunderstorms.
We eventually return to stand for more fuel and finally get going 2 hours + late.
Result is 6 hour delay arriving in ABZ today.

Had we pushed on time, we would also have been out ahead of the storms. Do you folks agree that EC261 is due?

corporate-wage-slave

Looking at the LGW arrival time, you appear to be 2 hours 25 minutes late into LGW (09:15 instead of 06:50), and it seems that 2 hours was weather and perhaps half an hour due to a technical fault. Your delay then stretched to 6 hours due to the service frequency, presumably from LHR and of course assuming this was one ticket. This doesn't seem very likely to succeed as a claim, I feel, the bulk of the delay was down to the weather, I'm assuming that had you been 30 minutes late into LGW you would have made the ABZ departure. If ABZ was on another ticket then you definitely won't get EC261.

Fernweh

Thanks NWIFlyer and corporate-wage-slave, that makes sense. I'll wait until next weekend and put in a claim - I'll let you know how it goes!

Fernweh

Sorry, one more question - could you tell me where you got the information you quoted above? It might be useful to have a screenshot of that from the original source as well, if it's something I can get access to. I've taken a screenshot of the Flight Status page below.

corporate-wage-slave

That came from ExpertFlyer, which in turn scraped it off the the Altéa Departure Control system. So I think you can probably rely on the post above as a source since my source is also indirect. I can't see it being challenged.