barneyb

Just had quite a strange flight flying GLA – LCY in CE. My original 4pm flight was cancelled, and got moved to the 6:50pm LCY flight. This had 3 CE passengers, and I was an extra fourth passenger. When they change my flight at the lounge I got seat 4A and told the rest of the cabin was full, which seemed strange…

On boarding, the other 3 CE passengers were in rows 1 and 2 with myself in row 4. Given the earlier cancelled flight, the plane was full including all the other seats in rows 1-4 with ET passengers. i.e. BA essentially declassified CE mixing CE and ET together - there was no dividing curtain, and no hot towel etc.

My CE service was limited throughout - the CSD initially warned me there were only 3 meals on-board, and then I was then forgotten about for the rest of the flight. Row 1-2 were served from the front galley, and then row 3 back were served from the trolley - all I manged to get was 1 drink and some nuts. I essentially got none of the (limited CityFlyer) CE product (eg CE passengers in rows 1-2 got offered multiple drinks throughout, offered tea / coffee etc and I got none given my row 4 seat) Eventually the CSD gave me two bags of crisps as there was no meal and told me to contact BA to get 5k points as she couldn’t work this out on the iPad given the scenario.

Is this declassification standard in any way? I’ve never seen mixed ET and CE service over the first few rows, and it clearly doesn’t work. What is the best way to complain to BA about this / would I have a case for compensation for a downgrade to ET? (I already have an eu261 claim from my originally cancelled flight and being 2+ hr late).

I've tied to keep this brief and thanks in advanced

Kgmm77

golfmad

It does sound a bit odd. Was there no space for you to be seated in rows 1-2 along with the other 3 passengers? While there was no meal for you at least you could have been topped up with drinks and generally provided more attention along with the others.

I would suggest you contact BA Customer Services via the web form and lodge a complaint and see what they say and take it from there.

Please do report back with the outcome.

orbitmic

barneyb

When they gave me a new boarding pass, on checking EF the further forward rows were all full (and showed CE up to row 4). Guess all the seats were auto allocated when they moved the earlier flight over, with me being allocated row 4? They could have easily changed seats at the gate and swapped me into row 2 to solve the problem...

If this is a new standard for oversold flights / fix for earlier IROPS, I would be concerned they next start filling middle seats in CE the NEOs and mixing the cabins.

Airprox

What class is shown on the new boarding pass you were given? Sounds very much like you were simply downgraded but they didn't want to tell you as such.

corporate-wage-slave

I think it is an effective downgrade so you should apply for reimbursement. More details in the EC261 thread, but BA have an involuntary fare reimbursement calculation which often takes several weeks to happen (it's a manual process), and EC261 has its own calculation method. They tend to work out at about the same amount, so I would do a back-of-envelope calculation of what EC261 would pay, so you are in a position to challenge the reimbursement.

I don't think it happens very often, usually BA goes to some effort to maintain the integrity of the CE cabin even in irrops. The last case I recall was due to mass irrops several years ago, and BA declassified a number of CE cabins in order to get displaced passengers home. This meant putting people in the middle seats of CE. BA declared force majeure, but those who persisted got downgrade reimbursement eventually, though some cases did end up in court.

Grande Annee

There was no dividing curtain on my recent flight JSI LCY.....first world problem I know! Great service though and there were only about 5 of us in CE.

I am right in thinking that these flights to Greece from LCY on the E190 can't operate completely full due to the distance?

barneyb

Thanks CWS - should I file the downgrade claim with the cancellation / 2hr+ delay claim or as two separate claims? Don't want to cause issues on the easy claim. This will be my first claim so no experence to date.

Airprox - boarding pass still shows as CE and group 1 etc.

corporate-wage-slave

Yes, I would put the Article 7 claim in first, making it clear that it was a cancellation rather than a delay - but by all means mention you are putting in a later separate claim for the downgrade. Try to keep both claims as short and concise as possible.

Andriyko

It seems to be a matter of the missing curtain (which does happen). What did your BP say - was Row 4 CE? In that case, ET passengers were upgraded into CE. Also, what do you mean by 'serving from the cart' - were you given (sold) BoB food/drinks?

rossmacd

How could someone be given/sold something from BoB on a LCY flight?

Andriyko

Of course, I forgot that that they still offer complimentary something in ET.

golfmad

This is an interesting argument though. The OP did say the BP said CE in which case it could be argued that there were several upgrades rather than the OP being downgraded.

barneyb

Good point - when i saw the CSD iPad when she told me about the meal shortage, there were 4 coloured CE seats - 3 in green and myself in red as a late addition (might have remembered the colors wrong). She also told no other passengers about the meal shortage so assume they were not upgraded. Also no one else boarded in group 1. But can't say for sure.

Thanks all for your help - I'll submit the claims tonight. As ever it's always hard to demonstrate something you did not receive.