ABZGirl

PUCCI GALORE

Actually, I had a look back through the thread as I had not been aware of much use of the C word myself. It is unclear to me whether your mean people here, or people who were caught up in this A lot of criticism of BA systems that appears to be justified, and I gather that there is precedent for BA having ultimate responsibility. It is abundantly clear to me that you only have to have 10 aircraft that are cancelled to cause the reservations agents to be swamped. Getting through to someone on the phone becomes a nightmare as well. The biggest problem is to know what to do for the best under such circumstances. I recall a night at EWR when the whole airport operation collapsed under snow storm. It was not pretty and people waited all night in some cases.

I saw on France Matin yesterday that delays and cancellations are at record levels in France - yesterday they shut Belgian air space. I bet that did a lot for Lufthansa's schedules. In between French ATC are still up in arms over working hours and the equipment with which they work. Due to an IT glitch, they lost an aircraft somewhere over the Brest peninsula last week. This is not hearsay or gossip One of Rich Bltch's sons works at Reims ATC centre. I suppose that thunderstorms will soon kick off and then we'll have more problems Last month, high winds at LGW kept us nailed to the ground for 3 hours in Valencia.

What I am trying to say is that I cannot think of a time when air travel has been so subject to last minute disruption and it is getting worse. Sometimes when you read this Forum it does seem as thought the Blame Game is the only one in town; It does to often feel that BA are their own worst enemies in that cost cutting to ape the Low Costs has outsourced so many vital components, and now tries to wriggle out of their legal obligations by in turn blaming anyone else but themselves. Their PR machine is clearly deficient as this sort of thing sticks.

I was having a poke through ancient posts and found the Resolutions 2017 thread -( which more or less made me stop TFTGs back then). Maybe a set of resolutions and the reasons behind them should be sent, delivered, or emailed to Senor Cruz. I just want his and my path to cross and I would have no hesitation in telling him the frustrations and the irritations that many feel. I'm nobody special except that I spend a lot of money with BA. I had on run-in with a well known Model (or whatever she is) who rejoices in two names - I shall not say more. If I could slap her down, El Cruz would be a walk in the park.

So far in my travels the good outweighs, but maybe I lead a charmed life or I am more easily satisfied.

Who I feel sorry for are all the families and particularly the elderly who do not have pretty cards and access to privileged numbers ( fat lot of good they usually are) and who are standing not really knowing what to do.

Tafflyer

Personally, I despise the Compensation culture and will only ask for it when I feel badly treated. The problem is, that BA very often gets to that point very quickly. People who travel a lot are used to disruption and to a certain extent get a little blasé about it. However, the real test for an airline is how they treat you and how they handle the situation. Small problems in BA often have a knock-on effect causing parts of the airline to go into complete meltdown.

American Airlines for example proactively sent me miles when my F seat would not recline and even sent me a $150 voucher when catering on my LAX-JFK in J was disrupted. All without me having to write or call anybody. BA seems to find excuse after excuse to weasel out even giving a sincere apology let alone proactively showing the let down passenger some gesture of remorse. For that reason, I totally understand why some FT'ers try and hit them in the pocket when things like this happen. It seems to be the only thing accountants that run this once great airline can understand.

squeeler

Well as CWS predicted, BA have declined EU261. They have agreed to pay my taxi, so I am glad I did not trek home on the train through London. I now have to consider whether it is worth the effort of having another crack at compo. (Would be a first time to try.) I seem to remember reading when the tower came back on line - does anyone have that info please?

corporate-wage-slave

See posts 74 and 75 above. There was another time predicted by Eurocontrol at the start of the thread but the ATC were back in business before that time.

Seraglio

Juan Manuel Gomez

bedelman

Seems like BA has told a fair number of passengers that their delays or cancellations resulted from ATC fire. Have they admitted that any delays or cancellations resulted from the "unrelated third party system issues" (IT failure)? If the problems are truly "unrelated," one imagines the first situation caused some problems and the second caused some more. If BA were to take the position that there were two problems but, conveniently, every single delay or cancellation resulted from the first problem -- well, that wouldn't be believable.

apollo00

I've just received much the same response re EU261 cancellation for BA1471 (INV>LHR at 21:10). Given the timing (the outbound LHR>INV was due to depart 18:30 which puts it clearly after the ATC issues) I seem to be getting fobbed off here. I suspect I will be aquatinting myself with CEDR shortly (which I've not had to do before - I assume it's worth trying rather than straight to MCOL?). Given the timing (outbound from Heathrow was after ATC delays) and ample documentation of IT issues I don't expect to have too many issues there but it's frustrating none the less to jump through these hoops.

Separately, they also turned down my claim for a ticket on the sleeper that night. I'd expected this to be more controversial but viewed it as an accommodation expense under duty of care and expected at least a partial refund (the ticket was £265, I've asked for that minus the fare for a seat on the same train (£80) as the train fare would arguably be a consequential loss. £185 compares reasonably with the cost of a hotel locally that night (I called a couple of places I know and they were in that ballpark) so it seems a reasonable claim to my mind as I have documented evidence I spent £185 on a bed for the night - any thoughts on this?

corporate-wage-slave

BA's accommodation limit is £200 so I think you did something reasonable here. I suspect that agents have the green light to pay for hotels but don't have flexibility when it comes to passengers thinking outside the box, as it were. I would be tempted to go MCOL here, though CEDR would be a reasonable choice, simply because it should get to a paralegal a bit sooner than CEDR. I'm not sure I'd have deducted the train fare.

scottishpoet

Your challenge here will be what happened to the aircraft and crew going into heathrow before it operated the 18:30 LHR-INV

If that aircraft could not get on the ground and had to divert, or had its take off delayed because of long queues as a result of heathrow airspace and ground movements having been closed for 40 minutes to an hour then you will struggle to get anything.

scottishpoet

I was on the BA 864 (LHR-WAW at 16:45) on the day in question. Our aircraft was about 30 minutes late onto stand as a result of the ATC issues.

Not sure about the 2 up front, but the cabin crew were just doing an out and back, so would have been in Heathrow.

We started boarding around 40 to 45 minutes late. We then had a length wait while some "paperwork was completed".

We then pushed back and taxied, but rather than turning onto the runway we turned and parked up east of T2, engines off.

We sat there until around 3 hours after the doors closed. We then get the load info we needed, engines started and took off around 4 minutes later

We were on stand at WAW around 4 hours 10 minutes late and captain said the delay was due to a BA IT failure.

(The aircraft then sat on ground at WAW overnight and operated the return flight following crew rest period around 17 hour late)

I have received an email that I will receive 250 Euros.

apollo00

The aircraft operated a NCL>LHR flight with 45 minutes delay so was on the ground at LHR and could reasonably have operated the rotation with a slight delay. After the cancellation it sat on the ground until the following morning (all according to flightradar24 - G-EUOH)

Of course that doesn't speak for the crew but I would (and will if necessary) argue this to be irrelevant as it's their home base and it's reasonable to expect they'd have spare crew available if required.

I suspect their next line will be that the systems issue was a third party issue affecting multiple airlines and therefore extraordinary in some way so I'll have to argue that as well. I'm fairly confident that if it goes to MCOL I'd win and I don't expect it to go that far over a relatively small sum.

apollo00

Thanks for that actually, it's helpful and interesting to know they're paying some claims out for that disruption at least (does heighten the sense they're trying their luck in rejecting mine). I strongly suspect the knowledge that they couldn't complete the load info was the reason the outbound was cancelled on mine...and if that's the case they're on the hook for compensation as far as I can see.

scottishpoet

I have been informed I will get 250Euros as er EC261 for the "systems issue" (see the post below the one you quoted)