BA6948

BA6948

SK AAR

I have to side with OP on this. When I checked connections from BRU to CPT on ITA Matrix last night the early KLM flight BRU-AMS connecting to KLM AMS-CPT came up. It was even reasonably priced at around 900 EUR for a return M/Y ticket (return flight 1 week later) so most likely there was good availability on AMS-CPT flight.

LTN Phobia

I suspect the trouble is that BA won't do anything until the misconnect has been 100% confirmed beyond any kind of doubt whatsoever, and by then, it may be too late to recover the situation according to what was possible earlier on.

I can't blame them for not doing anything until the misconnect is 100% confirmed, but it doesn't really help the passengers to reach their destination as quickly as possible.

cauchy

Report delayed baggage on the website, and then go shopping?

Sadly, BA just doesn't care because there's nothing you can do about it.

cauchy

But even if the misconnect is 100% confirmed, it looks like they'll still say 'sort it out in London'...

It's presumably an 'excellent' way to save money - the marginal cost of rebooking someone in London is small, perhaps even nearly zero. There's no extra cost in accommodating them on the new BA flight, and most people will take the hotel BA gives them, which might be on a very cheap corporate deal, or perhaps BA block books hotel rooms in advance for this purpose with zero marginal cost (though I might be making this up!)? Either way, I doubt it'll be much more than 50 quid per person, and BA retains the full value of the ticket. Rebooking at an outstation - well, they lose the value of the ticket, plus potentially more, and the expenses might be higher. Much, much more than 50 quid!

And there's another thing - rebooking everyone in London means that management has much closer control over the rebookings process. They can force the staff to screw the customer. This is much harder to do across the globe - especially because in some other countries, BA's attitude will be seen as outrageous, and if there's any scope for staff to be flexible, you can be sure they'll circumvent the restrictions.

LTN Phobia

Not necessarily. I believe there are some commercial arrangements in place between some airlines to book each others' disrupted passengers and the costs under that arrangement may not even be anywhere near as the EC261 compensations incurred by BA.

It is also not necessarily true that outstations aren't allowed to do it as a blanket rule. I know of one station manager who stayed up all night rebooking every single disrupted passenger (777-full) onto various carriers on his own (not many have the authority to do it, I believe?). I knew he wasn't telling me a fib because a couple of years before, there was a disruption that affected me from the same outstation and I had been rebooked even before I arrived at the airport, although I ultimately did not take up the rebooked option and stuck with BA because I did not like the alternative carrier.

It may simply be an issue of willingness or authority of the particular person, or the contractors wanting to leave it to "London" to deal with it in case they did something BA did not like and got their contractual fees docked (pure speculation, by the way) etc.

I've had all sorts of discussions with various carriers over the years over similar matters and proactive dealings with disruptions (or to be more precise, complaining about their failures thereof). For whatever reason LH has been best for me so far, and surprisingly some carriers with supposed excellent reputation for customer service has turned out to be the most dire I have ever experienced. I suspect it was not so much the cost aspects but the unwillingness of the agent to do anything for fear of doing something outside the 'correct policy' in this case.

cauchy

In this case, the EC261 compensation outcome wasn't going to change. All they can do is hope the OP doesn't successfully claim it.

There might be a small number of cases where a rebooking to another carrier can mean no EC261 compensation. Of course as you say there's a commercial arrangement to pay for this - I think it's a safe bet that the cost is on average at least the face value of the ticket? This can't mean they're saving all that much? If the savings were substantial and widespread, BA would be better at implementing this.

Also, the reality is probably that those travelling long-haul from BRU are seen as low-yield, unimportant customers. Higher value customers would probably stick to AF/KLM, using the train from Brussels Midi to CDG or AMS and then flying non-stop. BA isn't going to splurge on accommodating ground staff to keep these customers.

LTN Phobia

Let's just say I have my doubts, although it's more of a hunch than anything else, gleaned from what other airlines (not BA) have accidentally let out to me in a similar situation where I needed to be booked on an alternative carrier. It was surprisingly little, well below what I paid for my ticket. It's more of an "You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours" type of arrangement from what I gathered from what they said.

I'm not saying it's always the case because I might well have been on a full fare Y or something, and that would mean being a lot cheaper than what I paid doesn't necessarily mean what the carrier nominally paid was ridiculously low, but it was in any case surprisingly little.

As I say, I have my suspicion that there is more to it than just costs involved in the decision (very poor decision IMO from the customer perspective) not to reroute from BRU or some other outposts.

BA6948

I guess your point is valid for most of longhaul outstations with a real BA desk and representative. These are sadly not available in the EU as they have been replaced by 3rd party handling agents.

LTN Phobia

Third party handling agents have rebooked me at EU outposts well outside the OW network as well, but not all of them seem to be able to or willing to do it.

I do think that the key to solving it is to enable some (it doesn't even have to be every agent) BA call centre agents to rebook outside BA/JBA rather than relying on frankly somewhat inconsistent third party handling agents at outposts though.

BA6948

Managed to rectrieve my luggage. It took me 2 good hours to sort things out. After several failed phone calls to the baggae service at T3, went back to departures and to the customer relations desk. The lovely BA agent contacted baggage service and they put my luggage on Belt number 6. Then she needed someone to escort me airside. She called that number again but nobody picked up the phone for a good 15 minutes. I finally got the luggage and I am now back at the Sofitel.

In the meantime, I got answer from the twitter team and they apploigized for this whole mess and told me to open a claim after arriving at CPT (predictable).

Now I need to find a way to get ready for my exhibition. While I can now sort out my clothing I would still prefer to have a shower after landing at CPT. Does anyone know if there is something that can be done at CPT airport. I have checked online, there are only airside lounges.

And as a side note, yesterday's BA59 was operated by G-CIVO which is a refurbished mid-J 744. Today it is G-CIVC which is not. Oh well!

Andriyko

Airlines pay a nominal fee to re-accommodate passengers on each other's flights in the event of a disruption. The fee is nowhere near the face value of the ticket, and no one is going to pay a walk-up fare in the absence of an agreement to re-accommodate in the event of a disruption. Airlines use industry discounted rates in cases like this. Sometimes it is a matter of no agreement being in place (as was the case between AA and DL for a few years), and passengers can't be re-accommodated even though there are seats on the flight of another airline.

henry999

One minor silver lining that hasn't been mentioned yet is that although LHR-CPT is a long flight the time difference is only two hours so there is no jet lag!

P.S. Good luck, OP.

Anonba