Offshore171

Your colleague may well have been on a different fare category that allowed changes. This is pretty common when booking business travel.

The OP sounds like they were on some sort of super saver category that is non refundable or changeable.

If BA allowed a free reschedule for the cheapest fare category, why would anyone ever pay for a more flexible fare?

BOH

Expensive lesson for the OP. With regards to flights departing early, I have had this a few times recently from LGW to GOA and also on the return. We left GOA some 25 minutes ahead of schedule about 4 months ago - but clearly this was only after everyone had boarded. The inbound from LGW had arrived way ahead of schedule that day plus it would also have been a quiet time at LGW in January too. I think we arrived in LGW about 40 minutes early on that one!

Amusingly at LHR I have often heard the captain thank everyone for boarding so early and that due to this he will now "negotiate" with ATC for an earlier departure. Never seems to happen though - invariably we still finish up pushing back 5-10 minutes later than the scheduled time

orbitmic

In fairness, in this case, travel insurance would have made no difference. I know of no policy which would cover a case of "asked taxi to come too late"

simons1

Even if there was some possibility of the flight being delayed I would certainly not take it upon myself to turn up late at the airport without having contacted the airline or received a message to that effect. Anyone who travels on a remotely regular basis knows that these things can change, for example if a substitute aircraft became available.

The notion that I might just stroll into the airport at what I thought was an appropriate time strikes me as being a touch arrogant and self-important and I can't say I'm surprised at the outcome here.

Egoldstein

I find watching the App too closely can be problematic in this regard. I've seen recent flights on the app delayed by 3-5 hours sometimes 2 days in advance, sometimes a few hours before scheduled departure time, only to find that the delay was ultimately resolved and normal boarding times apply. The app does state clearly to go to the airport at the normal scheduled time.

Dave Noble

True - but in other situations where check in was missed, there may be coverage

corporate-wage-slave

There are several areas for this:
- BA.com/arrdep and the BA app will give a message like this:


- there are general Notifications of delays sent via the App or email worded something like this:


- then occasionally you will get a specific Notification. It will use the same wording as the first example if they want you to turn up on time, but here is an example where BA specifically allowed a delayed check-in:

Lucanesque

It is a really harsh lesson, that's for sure and a good reminder for us all, but I can't see any negative PR for BA here. Unless the OP was a movie star / gazillionaire / head of state, then there's nothing more to see here than someone who unfortunately got caught out by the fine print.

corporate-wage-slave

The OP won't be able to respond for a few more hours since s/he has hit the 5 posts a day limit for new members. But one other area of the CRA that may be worth considering is the unbalanced nature of the contract in this area. I am unsure it will get the OP any further forward, but I guess there is an argument that the implied contract is that BA is unforgiving over conformance and yet BA can delay as much as necessary on their side of the fence, and in many cases with few consequences to the airline. What is less clear is what time boarding actually was intended at 09:16. It may well be that they fully intended to get an on time departure at the 09:16 stage, or even did start expect boarding to start any moment, in which case denying baggage and denying access would be reasonable.

duncgor

navylad

Newly Wed

I think that BA do make clear in the case of delay that it is necessary to arrive at the airport in time for the original scheduled departure time....

Newly Wed

I think that BA do make clear in the case of delay that it is necessary to arrive at the airport in time for the original scheduled departure time. Fortunately in the case shown above the delay did reduce considerably.

Tobias-UK

@amit175 you mention that you had printed your BPs at home, what times were printed at the bottom of your BPs indicating the Bag Drop, Security and Boarding times?

gms

While I appreciate you have taken a big financial hit here, I really think you are clutching at straws. Your printed your boarding passes. These clearly show the "Departure Time" and also clearly shows that you need to drop your bags off x minutes "before departure" and the specific time by which you need to clear security (assuming a T5 departure). So you are correct that ordinary passengers shouldn't need to know about "conformance rules" because airlines like BA just tell them in plain English to make sure they "Clear security by xx.xx" followed by text saying "If you do not clear security by the time indicated above you will not be accepted for your flight". It can't really be much clearer than that!

I really struggle to believe that anyone will accept your view that "departs" could be misinterpreted. Your boarding pass shows the departure time and a specific time by which you need to have cleared security, with a specific statement saying you will not be accepted for travel if you don't clear security by that time. Case closed. Unfortunately, you made too many assumptions that were ultimately costly mistakes.