suncloud

Thanks a lot, all.

I put in a claim with BA, and their communication was quite bad all the way through. In the end the claim was turned down due to extraordinary circumstances. I'll look a bit more into lightning strike and previous rulings. May I ask what CEDR/MCOL entails? I've just left the UK for good and some routes might be closed for me.

corporate-wage-slave

I think you best look at the thread in the Dashboard, it's got all the details in it.

suncloud

Where do I find the Dashboard? I don't see such a thread here in this forum, and not a subforum called Dashboard. Might just be how this forum works in my browser though.

corporate-wage-slave

Do you have a set of threads at the top of the forum marked Stickies? It's the last one there.

simons1

Dashboard is here:

BA Forum Dashboard

MCOL is open to you if you have a UK address for service.

Otherwise contact Bott & Co by email. It may cost you 35% of the winnings, but €400 is a decent net return.

Tyzap

This will all come under scrutiny when Blanche v Easyjet is heard at the Court of Appeal in mid January.

The result will then set a precedent.

xenole

Can someone explain the CEDR process to me please? I've looked at various bits on these forums and it seems to give the impression that I have to wait 8 weeks before moving things on (if so, why? It's not as if BA is suddenly going to decide during that period "here's a load of cash we've decided that we're going to give you out of the goodness of our hearts").
BA aren't playing ball with me and I'm not wanting to rest on my laurels out of principle.

Secondly, is there a way of finding out what aircraft would have been used for the cancelled flight in order to see if, as in the WIKI, it was used elsewhere?

corporate-wage-slave

See post 1, 34a and the link there.

You need either BA to refer you to CEDR and/or you need a note from BA saying "our answer won't change". Just specifically ask for this. See recent posts above.

xenole

I did ask for that and got:

"I can confirm that the cancellation was due to additional inspections and maintenance required for Rolls-Royce Trent 1000 engines on Boeing 787 aircraft, which is having an impact on our overall global schedules. This is an issue affecting several airlines around the world. The safety of our customers and crews is always our top priority.

As these circumstances are outside British Airways control, we're no liable for compensation under EU regulation 261/2004. I'm sorry to have to disappoint you."

Then a bit about how much we love you as a gold member.

Do I have to respond again and specifically mention that I want to go to CEDR?

simons1

If 8 weeks has passed, no. If not then ask for deadlock letter so you can go to CEDR.

The good news is that CEDR is finding in consumers' favour on this on grounds that the airline has known for over a year about this and therefore giving travellers a few days notice of cancellation is unreasonable. There are some posts upthread giving examples.

PAL62V

OK, CEDR have received BA's response to my wife's claim for EC 261 following a 24 hr delay due to the RR Engines issue. Here is their response and I am now after advice as to the best sort of response I can send back before adjudication:

Original Flight
BA0188 Newark, NJ (EWR) – London Heathrow (LHR) 16 September 2018

Rebooked Flight
BA0184 Newark, NJ (EWR) – London Heathrow (LHR) 17 September 2018

Claim

21:35 09:30+1

18:10 06:15+1

The total amount the Passenger is claiming is Ł528.00 in respect of the cancellation of the flight.

Facts

A European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) Airworthiness Directive was issued on the week commencing 13 April 2018 (AD 13 April 18), revised and re-issued on 19 April 2018, both effective on 20 April 2018. The AD instructed all airlines around the world operating with the Trent 1000 engine to complete urgent checks on the compressor. I have attached a copy of the Airworthiness Directive for your information [Attachment 1].

The airline had no choice but to schedule the aircraft for the additional checks and inspections. Until all the checks were completed, there would be an impact on the Extended-range Twin- engine Operational Performance Standards (ETOPS) rating of all Boeing 787 aircraft in the British Airways fleet (except for one aircraft that had just been delivered). There are currently 29 787s in the fleet according to ba.com.

ETOPS is a set of standards and regulations which must be complied with if the airline wishes to fly aircraft more than 60 minutes away from the nearest emergency landing airport, which is usually over the Atlantic.

Each aircraft affected by the AD 13 April 2018 was to be classified into one of three categories, ETOPS 180, ETOPS 140 and ETOPS 60. This meant that aircraft must fly no more than 180, 140 or 60 minutes away from the nearest emergency landing airport. Any aircraft that had not been inspected was automatically classified as an ETOPS 60 or non-ETOPS, which would make flying over large stretches of water or barren land virtually impossible.

If an aircraft fell into the non–ETOPS category, then this would result in the flying time being significantly increased as the aircraft would be forced to fly longer routings than usual to comply with non-ETOPS restrictions. In turn, the longer flying time would result in a rotational delay to the next flight.

However, the aircraft were then subject to further necessary inspections to each engine,


[img]blob:https://www.flyertalk.com/1936bb54-2...c703completing one inspection at a time. There is a staged inspection process in place. Even after the initial inspections took place, dependent on the results of the inspections, they become even more regular, so that they eventually require inspections after every 3 cycles.

Rolls Royce predicted 90% of the engines subject to the inspections under the AD 13 April 2018 would fail and therefore need replacing. Due to the scale of the issue within such a short space of time, Rolls-Royce was unable to supply spare engines sufficiently quickly.

The Boeing 787-9s with the registrations G-ZBKD, G-ZBKI, G-ZBJF, G-ZBJE and G-ZBJA and were all subject to the inspections during September 2018. These aircraft failed the inspections for both engines and accordingly replacement engines were required. These aircraft were therefore grounded and were out of service until new engines had been fitted. The manufacturing of new engines was in the complete control of Rolls Royce, the engine manufacturer, there were therefore no measures which the airline could adopt to speed up this process.

Only after the new engines had been fitted, could the aircraft be classified as the ETOPS 180 category.

The engine inspections for this issue were scheduled to continue until August 2018, however, because the resulted of the inspections have been much worse than initially anticipated, the inspections are still ongoing. Other major carriers are also impacted by the same issue such as Virgin Atlantic, All Nippon Airways, Air New Zealand and other smaller operators.

It goes without saying that the above described events are not inherent in the normal operation of the activity of an air carrier, are not within the actual control of the carrier and cannot possibly be anticipated. No reasonable steps could have been taken by BA to avoid these extraordinary circumstances. The manufacturing defects arising and experienced with the compressor in BA's Trent 1000 engines were not something that could have been foreseen. Indeed, Rolls Royce had not anticipated any such issues. Nonetheless, once the issue was first raised, BA was obliged to create an urgent engineering programme to resolve the issues in accordance with the AD 13 April 2018, which unfortunately resulted in the unavoidable cancellation of some flights so that that affected engines could be replaced.

Accordingly, the Flight was cancelled due to extraordinary circumstances which could not have been avoided even if all reasonable measures had been taken for the purposes of Article 5(3) of the Regulation.

BA took all reasonable measures and/or employed all resources at its disposal to avoid the extraordinary circumstance. There was no other reasonable and/or technically and/or economically viable option available to BA that would have enabled it to operate the Flight at this time.

There were no reasonable measures which BA could have adopted to avoid the implications of the AD 13 April 2018. BA must comply with the instruction to inspect the relevant aircraft in accordance with the AD 13 April 2018.

BA implemented an inspection programme as quickly and efficiently as possible. The programme involved many engineers including Quality Assurance Engineers and Development Engineers. A special team within Network Operations was also created to manage the

maintenanceandscheduleplanning. Thedefectimpactedmanyaircraftmeaningthatthe airline's fleet was not at full strength, accordingly there were no spare aircraft in BA's fleet which could have operated the Flight.

Where possible, the airline has switched certain 787-9 aircraft to 777 aircraft to operate as many flights as possible. However, with some aircraft completely out of service it is impossible to resource new aircraft for all planned routes.

The airline did consider wet-leasing options to avoid the cancellation of the Flight. The airline is restricted from only wet-leasing from the approved list known as the white list. The lead time to arrange for a lease-in and gain the approval of the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) is approximately 21 days involving a detailed consultation process. Wet-leasing aircraft is much more difficult in the spring/summer season as the increase in leisure traffic means high demand and therefore less options available. In addition, the time it would take the other carrier to arrange aircraft, plans and crewing must also be considered. The Network Operations Planning team had hoped that they would have been able to resource an aircraft to operate the Flight from elsewhere in the fleet. However, due to the amount of aircraft impacted by the manufacturing defect this was not possible. At the time of making the decision to cancel the flight, there was not sufficient time to arrange a wet-lease.

British Airways has, however, wet-leased may flights from Qatar Airways in connection with the manufacturing defect to avoid cancellations and delays.

The following media article details the problems:

https://thepointsguy.com/news/how-ai...ngine-trouble- on-the-boeing-787/

BA188 on 17 September 2018 was cancelled on 12 September 2018 along with several other flights that were due to be operated by 787 aircraft. I attach a copy of the flight record relating to BA188 on 17 September 2018 [Attachment 2].

NEB guidelines

We refer you to item 18 of the NEB Guidelines issued by the EU Commission dated 19 April 2013, which sets out a list of circumstances which are extraordinary circumstances.

Item 18 states:

EC Regulation 261/2004

In accordance with Article 9, we have already settled a claim for hotel accommodation. No other expenses have been claimed.

Conclusion

In conclusion, British Airways avers that the cancellation of the flight constitutes extraordinary circumstances and compensation is not payable.

18
Manufacturing Defects
Discovery of a hidden manufacturing defect by the air carrier (this is often noted by unusual failure of the same aircraft part).


I trust I have assured you that BA has considered its obligations under EC Regulation 261/2004 correctly.

xenole

So technically that says that BA can cancel a 787 flight at any point of their choosing, knowing fine that there's no way they're going to be able to get the plane fully checked out even with months of notice, so they're in the clear as it's someone else's problem.

serfty

Looks like they were trying to blind/deflect you with the <blah blah>.

In no way does the conclusion provide reference to Extraordinary circumstances in that they could not have been avoided even if all reasonable measures had been taken.With the 5 months between the directive and your wife's delay, CEDR have ruled in several similar cases that all reasonable steps have not been undertaken and compensation was payable.

corporate-wage-slave

My personal take on the above is that BA, by their own admission, had from 13 April to get you on time between the two biggest cities on BA's network. There would have been dozens of ways to do this, and they have not proven they did everything reasonable to do that (e.g. using other carriers). You are not fighting extraordinary circumstances, you are dealing purely with the "all reasonable measures" aspect.

PAL62V

Thanks to you both for those thoughts. I needed some idea as how best to state what I knew was the case and you have both helped me formulate what I need to say. I think I will keep it brief and basically hit the points you make regarding the 5 months; the two largest cities; other carriers. And I'll wrap that up in the "all reasonable measures" aspect.

If anyone else has anything further to offer, I am all ears!

And @c-w-s, I appreciate you being here still answering queries after such a busy day for you with the LGW shutdown!