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The 2018 BA compensation thread: Your guide to Regulation EC261/2004

Old May 22, 2018, 3:28 am
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Last edit by: serfty
Link to Text of the regulations in PDF format

How about a Wiki to post EU comp given/denied as well as results for any CEDR or other process. Especially concerning the 787 issue as there are going to be many claims given all the cancellations.

Mine was April 22 BA280 LAX-LHR cancellation 4 days before flight and rebooked on later flight and arrived 4.5 hrs later than origianlly scheduled. BA's response was to deny for "operational" requirements though the 787 "tentatively assigned" G-ZBJG was used instead for a LHR-YUL flight that same day. CEDR filed and awaiting their initial review. Sept 3rd UPDATE: CEDR decision in Article 7 comp awarded in the amount of 600 euro as even though extraordinary circumstances are present in an engine defect as this, BA didn't show that they took reasonable steps to avoid the cancellation as they have known since Oct 2017 of this issue.
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The 2018 BA compensation thread: Your guide to Regulation EC261/2004

Old Aug 24, 2018, 1:40 am
  #1201  
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Originally Posted by plon
If we were downgraded on the final leg of a flight LHR-PHL-CLT due to a delay--replacing a tire--that made us miss a connection in PHL and were put on the next flight, but downgraded to Y, do I contact BA or AA for the difference in fare on the PHL-CLT leg? (2.27 delay from originally scheduled arrival time in CLT)
Assuming the tyre problem was on BA, then you claim from BA for the involuntary downgrade. If it was an AA ticket some of the processing may be handled by AA. However the sums may not be good unless there were Avios involved. There are 2 ways to do the calculation, fare difference handled by the marketing carrier - which could be very low or zero - and the EC261 formula indicated at the top of the thread, which in this case would be BA. On a return ticket you are looking at a refund of 6% of base fare + carrier surcharge.
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Old Aug 24, 2018, 1:50 am
  #1202  
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Originally Posted by JALlover
Got a reply from BA customer relations regarding my flight BA945 (DUS-LHR) on 28th July, saying due to weather-related problem that were out of their control (I understand this part),
The slightly longer version from your previous posts is that the previous service LHR-DUS was a few hours late, but was then held overnight at DUS, and my suspicion was that the airport's curfew forced that to happen. To take this further you would need to argue that BA should have had the resources to get the aircraft into DUS soon enough to depart from DUS before the curfew. The second line of argument is that while weather and curfews count as extraordinary circumstances, recovery from them isn't, and that would apply if there was still a long delay next day, which I don't believe you can reasonably state. So if the weather issue was widespread, which turned out to be the case, then this doesn't look like the strongest case on this thread.
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Old Aug 24, 2018, 4:06 am
  #1203  
 
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I'm puzzled as to how a curfew could be considered an extraordinary circumstance, given that they're set in stone and everyone knows about them. Granted, unpredictable or extreme weather that could cause a flight to miss a curfew could be considered extraordinary, but the curfews themselves are a known quantity.
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Old Aug 24, 2018, 4:11 am
  #1204  
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Originally Posted by armouredant
I'm puzzled as to how a curfew could be considered an extraordinary circumstance, given that they're set in stone and everyone knows about them. Granted, unpredictable or extreme weather that could cause a flight to miss a curfew could be considered extraordinary, but the curfews themselves are a known quantity.
I think the argument is that when the captain indicates to Control in LHR, that the aircraft is ready to depart from LHR to DUS, they have no immediate clue exactly what time they will land, and therefore it is not clear whether a return to LHR will be possible. The actual departure time is unknown until all doors are closed (and perhaps some time thereafter), moreover it's not necessarily clear at that point what time they will touch down in DUS. Add in bad weather then you can see not all of this is under BA's control.
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Old Aug 24, 2018, 4:59 am
  #1205  
 
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Great, thanks--that was along what I was thinking. If anyone happens to know of any precedent, I'd appreciate any specific detail. Otherwise, time to get into the research!
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Old Aug 24, 2018, 6:46 am
  #1206  
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This 'crew illness' issue is quite interesting.

A helpful member on Australian Frequent Flyer recently posted these two links:

https://www.bottonline.co.uk/blog/ju...y-compensation

https://www.bottonline.co.uk/flight-...-crew-sickness

Basically, a court has previously ruled - against BA no less - that crew illness is not extraordinary.
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Old Aug 24, 2018, 6:53 am
  #1207  
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Originally Posted by danger
Basically, a court has previously ruled - against BA no less - that crew illness is not extraordinary.
District Court Judgments aren't binding on other judges. There could be dozens of other rulings that say the opposite. Of course Bott and Co are going to push the one they agree with,

It would take a higher court ruling to make it binding. And I could see an airline taking this all the way to the Supreme Court if they felt it necessary.
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Old Aug 24, 2018, 7:04 am
  #1208  
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Originally Posted by danger
This 'crew illness' issue is quite interesting.

A helpful member on Australian Frequent Flyer recently posted these two links:

https://www.bottonline.co.uk/blog/ju...y-compensation

https://www.bottonline.co.uk/flight-...-crew-sickness

Basically, a court has previously ruled - against BA no less - that crew illness is not extraordinary.
Originally Posted by UKtravelbear
District Court Judgments aren't binding on other judges. There could be dozens of other rulings that say the opposite. Of course Bott and Co are going to push the one they agree with,

It would take a higher court ruling to make it binding. And I could see an airline taking this all the way to the Supreme Court if they felt it necessary.
It needs to be recognised here that what is actually being determined, most likely, is not what constitutes extraordinary circumstances, but rather whether or not the airline took all reasonable measures in sections 12, 14 & 15.

Originally Posted by EC261
(12) The trouble and inconvenience to passengers caused by cancellation of flights should also be reduced. This should be achieved by inducing carriers to inform passengers of cancellations before the scheduled time of departure and in addition to offer them reasonable re-routing, so that the passengers can make other arrangements. Air carriers should compensate passengers if they fail to do this, except when the cancellation occurs in extraordinary circumstances which could not have been avoided even if all reasonable measures had been taken.

(14) As under the Montreal Convention, obligations on operating air carriers should be limited or excluded in cases where an event has been caused by extraordinary circumstances which could not have been avoided even if all reasonable measures had been taken. Such circumstances may, in particular, occur in cases of political instability, meteorological conditions incompatible with the operation of the flight concerned, security risks, unexpected flight safety shortcomings and strikes that affect the operation of an operating air carrier.

(15) Extraordinary circumstances should be deemed to exist where the impact of an air traffic management decision in relation to a particular aircraft on a particular day gives rise to a long delay, an overnight delay, or the cancellation of one or more flights by that aircraft, even though all reasonable measures had been taken by the air carrier concerned to avoid the delays or cancellations.
At LGW and LHR, where BA has large bases and reserve crew, if they cancelled because of a crew shortage they would not have taken all reasonable measures. At LCY, with Cityflyer, there's a good argument the same applies - maybe also at JFK given the significance of the base in the operation. If a crew member fell ill on rotation at, say, OSL it would not be reasonable to expect BA to find another crew member at no notice.

Consequently, in grey areas such as these individual circumstances will always influence the court's view, and you simply can't rely on one judgment in one circumstance carrying over to another that might be slightly different and therefore fail the reasonableness test.
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Old Aug 24, 2018, 7:16 am
  #1209  
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Originally Posted by UKtravelbear
District Court Judgments aren't binding on other judges. There could be dozens of other rulings that say the opposite. Of course Bott and Co are going to push the one they agree with,

It would take a higher court ruling to make it binding. And I could see an airline taking this all the way to the Supreme Court if they felt it necessary.
I wasn't aware of that. That said, even if the judgment isn't binding, it would surely be an important case to reference if one was to take the same path. Of course, I accept there may well be other cases where judges have found in favour of the defendant in such cases, which obviously wouldn't help.

Originally Posted by NWIFlyer
It needs to be recognised here that what is actually being determined, most likely, is not what constitutes extraordinary circumstances, but rather whether or not the airline took all reasonable measures in sections 12, 14 & 15.

At LGW and LHR, where BA has large bases and reserve crew, if they cancelled because of a crew shortage they would not have taken all reasonable measures. At LCY, with Cityflyer, there's a good argument the same applies - maybe also at JFK given the significance of the base in the operation. If a crew member fell ill on rotation at, say, OSL it would not be reasonable to expect BA to find another crew member at no notice.

Consequently, in grey areas such as these individual circumstances will always influence the court's view, and you simply can't rely on one judgment in one circumstance carrying over to another that might be slightly different and therefore fail the reasonableness test.
Note, though, that in the case referenced in the Bott link, the flight in question was ex-Catania. The judge opined "If the Defendant does choose to operate with the bare minimum of staff, I think they must also build into their thinking the risk that they may have to pay passengers compensation under the Article, if as in this case, the Defendant is caught out by a member of staff being taken ill.

So it appears the judge's view was that the airline had indeed not taken "all reasonable measures", even though the port was far from a hub.
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Old Aug 24, 2018, 10:18 am
  #1210  
 
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We have avoided BA whenever possible for the past 2 years because of the dramatic decline of service standards . I was nevertheless booked on a flight from Rome to LHR 2 days ago. For hours we were kept on board (outside temp 33 degrees) as there was a technical problem. From conversation overheard it was clear that the flight would be cancelled but they withheld the information from passengers.They would offer passengers warm water from the tank---no other drinks were supplied and certainly no refreshments of any kind. Finally we were told the flight would operate only the following morning, It took HOURS to get accommodated in a cheap hotel near the airport. The following day, there was yet another long delay and absolutely no food or drink service on this 2 and a half hour flight. A lot of passengers were missing their new connections( rebooked as a result of the delay). I was in Club Europe: nothing to eat. BA only caters out of London and they are so cheap, insesitive and irresponsible that they won't spend a penny on buying in supplies if the return-catering fails owing to delays or other issues. My attempts to get compensation have so far been completely unsuccessful: the customer `service' is trained to `manage' complaints and do everything possible to trick people out of compensation. The pilots and the crew on the flight were kind, helpful and did everything possible to help. They however are the be let down most by this badly managed, failing airlines
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Old Aug 24, 2018, 10:21 am
  #1211  
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Originally Posted by Jonathan1974
We have avoided BA whenever possible for the past 2 years because of the dramatic decline of service standards . I was nevertheless booked on a flight from Rome to LHR 2 days ago. For hours we were kept on board (outside temp 33 degrees) as there was a technical problem. From conversation overheard it was clear that the flight would be cancelled but they withheld the information from passengers.They would offer passengers warm water from the tank---no other drinks were supplied and certainly no refreshments of any kind. Finally we were told the flight would operate only the following morning, It took HOURS to get accommodated in a cheap hotel near the airport. The following day, there was yet another long delay and absolutely no food or drink service on this 2 and a half hour flight. A lot of passengers were missing their new connections( rebooked as a result of the delay). I was in Club Europe: nothing to eat. BA only caters out of London and they are so cheap, insesitive and irresponsible that they won't spend a penny on buying in supplies if the return-catering fails owing to delays or other issues. My attempts to get compensation have so far been completely unsuccessful: the customer `service' is trained to `manage' complaints and do everything possible to trick people out of compensation. The pilots and the crew on the flight were kind, helpful and did everything possible to help. They however are the be let down most by this badly managed, failing airlines
Phew! Now that you've completed your rant would you mind explaining whether BA are declining your request for EU261 compensation and if so, do you know why?
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Old Aug 24, 2018, 10:30 am
  #1212  
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Originally Posted by Jonathan1974
My attempts to get compensation have so far been completely unsuccessful
The flight was TWO days ago. You aren't going to get any resolution in TWO days.
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Old Aug 24, 2018, 3:18 pm
  #1213  
 
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Originally Posted by babarage
We were on BA0212 from Boston to LHR on Friday. Flight was delayed causing us to miss our connection to Brussels. Reason for delay was a bit murky. There was a t-storm but that was pretty much over at departure time. The first officer also mentioned something mechanical, something about paperwork due to the repairs and to top all this off they had to offload a bag. So what gives? Can anybody help out, Any chance for the eu compensation?



I asked this a few days ago, unfortunately no answer. Nobody knows?

Just bumping to be sure. Did put in the claim, I think. Not sure, was working on it when all of a sudden it was submitted and unfortunately I cant find a way to see what is in the case that wa submitted so might just be the complaint about wheelchair assistance I was adding and not the eu claim.
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Old Aug 25, 2018, 7:20 am
  #1214  
 
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Originally Posted by golfmad
Phew! Now that you've completed your rant would you mind explaining whether BA are declining your request for EU261 compensation and if so, do you know why?
Do you find its polite not to refer to other people's comments as 'rant'?
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Old Aug 25, 2018, 7:26 am
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Originally Posted by UKtravelbear
The flight was TWO days ago. You aren't going to get any resolution in TWO days.
The extent of the problem required urgent contact on the phone with customer service. A series of calls achieved nothing: the reference number was 'lost', the person who promised to call back did not...etc. all the usual staff presumably in the hope that the customer and the problem will somehow 'go away'
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