rossmacd

It sure is the airline's responsibility (there is no debating that fact). But there comes a point of reality where being (unwillingly) stuck somewhere, that someone can take matters into their own hands. Booking a last-minute ticket and then attempting to claim the cost via the courts is a possibility. I would say that sub-£600 is pretty cheap to cross the Atlantic at the drop of a hat.

If the passenger is willingly stuck, then of course it is a non-issue

ScruttonStreet

Because not everyone can afford £580.

corporate-wage-slave

At one point JFK really was overwhelmed (airlines collectively) and were quoting multiple days to get people back. In reality I think all BA passenger who wanted to travel had no more than 48 hours of delay, ditto the other legacy airlines, as other routes such as YYZ and IAD were considered. I suspect the 4 and 5 days quoted were on the basis of "when is your next flight out of here?" which would have changed the next time someone looked. The USA airlines don't have quite the same pressure since they are not responsible for the hotel bills, but they have the network and experience to shift people at times like this. I don't know the specifics for the LCCs but usually they struggle in this area simply from lack of equipment, network, experience and locally based middle management. They would normally be covered by EC261. However the CAA's guidance on this - not fully tested - is that if your travel can't be rebooked within 24 hours then you can sort yourself out and bill the LCC for reasonable costs. DY aren't too bad in the EC261 area (compared to say Wow!) other than they don't make it easy to make the claim in the first place.

ScruttonStreet

FYI my colleague is stuck with what appear to be around 50/60 others from the Norwegian flight. I am sure most other carriers would have got them all home by now.

corporate-wage-slave

I am not a lawyer but frankly five days is way too long in terms the intention of EC261. BA, AA and a host of other airlines are selling tickets for services today - in Economy - to Europe. It may be a high wire act, and maybe their insurance company / employer can give further guidance / guarantees, but if your colleague - having asked DY to do this first - were to buy a ticket from BA (etc) and then charge it to DY, I have a reasonably good feeling that the courts would uphold that. Now that isn't totally certain, a judge may disagree with this, but in terms of the CAA's own guidance - visible on their website - the passenger is supported by the Regulation to do this. It may be best to buy a return to keep the cost down. I can see fares in the USD1350 range on the BA website.

This is assuming the ticket was bought USA to UK, including an indirect routing, but on a single reservation.

My previous post here may help
https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/29176757-post149.html

CAA leaflet (PDF) - see the Continuing your journey section.
http://publicapps.caa.co.uk/docs/33/...r%20flight.PDF

Koru Flyer

As a data point, BA offered us any USA gateway (I guess within reason, so I am not sure on jfk-lax-lhr for instance) and AA flight from nyc to that gateway if required. As well as options on AA or AY. the train to PHL or IAD could also come into play. We stuck with JFK due to being offered Friday, and that there were no reasonable flights from JFK anyway as AAs ops were slammed.

Also so I felt BA were very good with working with a sugggested flight, and then giving me to the next day to think on it before it became my free change.

At at the airport on the Friday were lots of people from the previous night, like Groundhog Day. The only place I would fault is whether the queues to rebook were necessary, I.e. Could they have put more staff on, and that telling people to go book their own hotel, take a taxi etc, and call 1800-airways is fine for most people here who are experienced, and of the means, but a large number do not have that experience or means, and were confused and hunkered down for the night at the airport. This is where I see eu261 falling down, in providing a piece of paper and some vague stuff about you can send it in via the website, is not enough for many people.