vbroucek

Do you have further information about what did happen at NCL or do you just read @Andrea3108 mind? I cannot see anywhere that (s)he would refer to collision of mobile stairs and the aircraft...

Andrea3108

Thanks both for coming back to me... I'm really not sure what collided with the plane in NCL. There was a lounge full of exec club members there at the time so if anyone does know what happened that would be very interesting.

Tyzap

No, I'm not a mind reader, although mobile boarding stairs are the most common cause of this type of damage, and therefore, the most likely cause of this damage.

However, I read the article as being more generic than exclusively just about boarding stairs only, as catering wagons, refuelling wagons etc would all fall under the same category of vehicle imo. This seems to be borne out by the last sentence which says...

Extraordinary circumstances would apply, for example, when damage to the aircraft is due to an act external to the airport’s normal services, such as an act of terrorism or sabotage.

oslogutt999

How long is it fair to let BA go without responding to a claim? I see from the superb wiki in this thread that anything from 6 days and up to several weeks may be expected.

But, apart from an auto-email confirming (with a case number attached), I've not heard from BA in what is now close to a month now.

Short story: during the snow fall in early December, my flight LHR-OSL was cancelled, along with all BA flights on the same route the next day. BA gave no option but to travel 2 days after the original departure date via an obscure routing (LHR-BLL-OSL) which would take most of the day if flown. No other airlines were available until that same day (again, 2 days after the intended flight date), but I managed to get home with Norwegian direct and arriving earlier than with BA's alternative route and prolonged transfer wait-time in BLL.

In other words, I chose to abandon the BA flight and I do not expect them to cover the cost of alternate tickets. However, I did incurr costs with 2 nights extra hotel accomadation + transportation and meals. These costs would have been the same had I chosen to accept on BA's alternative route. I did not cancel the BA ticket (although they seemed to want me to in their email about the cancellation), but neither did I confirm accepting the alternate route.

1) Am I right in thinking that I am due a compensation from BA to cover those extra costs?
2) How long should I wait for BA to reply to my claim (I've tried chasing them up via email, but they do not reply)

Thanks for your help!

corporate-wage-slave

"Right to care" can run with full refund due to cancellation, there is a clear "and" conjunction used in the Regulation (Article 5.1.a) . From what I'm reading there was no viable option for you to travel with BA before 2 nights and in the end you didn't travel (or rather re-routed yourself) but only after those 2 nights were up. Now in theory, due to the 2 day delay, the CAA guidelines actually suggest that you should be able to get BA to pay for the Norwegian flight, in which case the 2 days in the hotel would also be fine. You would not get a refund on the BA ticket in this scenario. The refund aspect is reasonably certain, there's no way I can see that BA can avoid paying that. The only risk is if they say "you cancelled, we will refund you, but you don't get right to care". That would be seem unlikely and is in any case against the Regulation wording. If you do not wish to wait any longer you can give customer relations a call in the afternoon (UK time) and that may expedite the matter. However many thousands of people were caught up in the events of that day, so I'm not surprised that you may be waiting a while. Your other option is a DM on Twitter.

navatwal

I travelled on BA 279 on Nov 12 from LHR to SJC.... the flight was due to arrive at 15:41but landed at 19:12pm, over 3.5 hours late.

This was due to a battery issue we were told on the day and a late tow.

I submitted an online claim. BA have today responded back advising that they were responsible for only 160mins of the delay and that Air Traffic restrictions were to blame for the rest of the delay.

Surely it is the root cause that counts right? I would hate to think that BA get away with this due to a technicality. - Can I still claim?

Also a little dissapointed at BA's response, this was for a $11k FIrst Class Fare.

corporate-wage-slave

It is the root cause that matters, however it - and other non extraordinary circumstances - needs to take you over 3 hours, and from what BA have said this isn't the case. If ATC did indeed cause a substantial delay, BA are entitled to disregard that element. Moreover it will be difficult to establish this as a passenger. Having said that, and presuming the problem was at the LHR end, you should know the extent of the ATC problem in terms of when the aircraft was in a potential position to take off - after fixing the faults - and the actual time of take off. The captain would normally say something. If that is not your recollection then you can push harder, but if BA have evidence to support their position I doubt it will be an easy case. I know hindsight is marvellous but it is always worth making notes of timings and any announcements from the flight deck in these sorts of cases.

simons1

Frustrating.....I suspect that this is BA's latest tactic to reduce costs. Accept there was a problem but throw in an ATC issue that brings it under 3 hours.

Personally I would pursue it under MCOL or place in the hands of Bott & Co.

omk298

Just wondering about several recent cases reported here where BA have claimed ATC delays have been responsible for just enough of the delay to bring it under the relevant 3 or 4 hour mark. Can they really claim that 20 minutes of ATC delays at LHR are an extraordinary circumstance? Obviously I fly a lot less than most on here, but I still go through LHR several times a year and I don't remember ever not having a delay to either take-off or land.

corporate-wage-slave

ATC delays are specifically mentioned in the Regulation as being something outside an airline's control. The point of the Regulation was to change airline behaviour where they were avoidably failing their customers. Realistically LHR in particular runs at close to 100% capacity and it is difficult for BA - on its own - to do much about improving that without the Third Runway or a similar capacity improvement nearby. As to what a typical delay in take off looks like, that gets a bit complicated. So for example you will see that flight from LHR to NCL are scheduled at 75 minutes. In reality, the flying time in that direction is 45 to 50 minutes. There are rarely delays when arriving at NCL and taxi time there is 5 minutes, you run out of airport after that. So you can see in there that 20 minutes is expected to get the service airborne from LHR. Depending on runway selection that allows for a bit of delay or queuing but not much. This issue comes to the fore if the NCL service is 3 hours 5 minutes late leaving LHR: If it takes 30 minutes to get airborne due to congestion then there is going to be an argument that 10 to 30 minutes of any final delay is due to ATC slots and therefore they slide just under the 3 hour cut off.

omk298

My point/question is about what an extraordinary circumstance is re ATC. I'd have thought that something like the French being on strike again, or a runway closing due to an accident would be the sort of thing that would count as an extraordinary circumstance - isn't that the sort of thing that the exception in the regulation is aimed at?
Is the regulation really meant to mean that a delay due to the routine operation of a busy airport is extraordinary?

If I was getting this response from BA I'd be making the point that their schedules are padded as you say, so 20 or 30 minutes of ATC delay is already accounted for in the schedule.

corporate-wage-slave

That's absolutely in scope for debate, which is why I made the point about where padding ends and extraordinary circumstances start. But BA are on fairly strong territory if they can identify ATC restrictions and exclude them from delay timings. The question is less about ATC delays of 45 minutes - BA are probably correct at that point - but if it's 15 minutes then they are on thin ice. You can't get airborne much sooner than that.

HilFly

If a mechanical problem causes a flight to miss its original ATC slot, isn't it part and parcel of a delay caused by a mechanical problem? Wi

corporate-wage-slave

Yes I think there may well be an argument there. Usually this wouldn't make much difference: if there is a slot restriction it would just shift over and the padding more or less covers it. But sometimes there are extended slot restrictions, e.g. when ATCs midway through the trip go on strike. Had the aircraft been in good mechanical order then it may have avoided a long wait altogether. There again the airline could say "well we fixed it as quick as we could, it took (e.g.) 30 minutes, but those ATC strikers added most of the extended delay". At which stage the customer could point out the airline knew about the strike 48 hours previously. But it is the sort of thing where I suspect the underlying details will matter, the passenger may perhaps rely on the "all reasonable measures" aspect, but it would need a judicial ruling to be certain how it would be resolved.

stifle

I would argue that ATC delays are unavoidable, but not extraordinary.