corporate-wage-slave

At this stage the best thing to do is to apply for EC261 Article 7 compensation and see what BA says. If you ask this soon after the cancellation has been announced then we may get some more clues from the dispatch system, but after about 2 days that information is no longer visible. My suspicion is that BA had crew and aircraft out of position from the previous day's irrops. If the day of cancellation was OK flying wise, then BA can't rely on that knock on aspect, given LCY is their home hub.

wilsnunn

I have a question that is about a delay on QR and not BA, but I am hoping that the expert minds will be able to point me in the right direction here.

I recently flew SOF-DOH-SIN with a scheduled 23hr 5min stopover in Doha. My SOF-DOH flight (QR226 on 14/8/19) was on time but my originally booked DOH-SIN flight (QR946 on 16/8/19) had a delayed departure by 5hrs 49mins which I was told by the agent at the lounge desk was a result of a tech issue with the flight. I was moved onto QR944 which was on time and I landed in Singapore 4hrs 48mins after I was originally scheduled to.

I thought (from reading the opening posts of this thread) that as the delay was only on the DOH-SIN leg, I was not entitled to any compensation however there were some suggestions on the QR forum that I was indeed due compensation under EC/261 as my ticket originated in SOF.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Vasco Pridat

You should be if it is on one ticket.. But after all.. It's qr.. Gotta fight for it.
Greatest airline when things work out.. Tough to get anything done in a crisis. Gl

NickB

There is a recent case that suggests that this might indeed be the case. See CWS's post #675 above and the discussion in the next few posts.

Christianziff

These threads are an amazing resource. I'm currently waiting on the outcome of my claim with BA.

TL;DR - On 14 August 2019 BA545 from BLQ - LHR was severely delayed due to a mechanical problem with the air conditioning and pressurisation of the plane. Therefore, I missed my connection on BA15 to Singapore. Ended up being delayed by 12 hours and downgraded from World Traveller Plus on BA to Economy on Singapore Airlines. Lots of sleep deprivation. Seeking €600 in compensation under EU261 due to the delay, refund of 75% of the cost of the fare (worth about 33,000 Asia Miles) due to the downgrade, refund of the difference between the premium economy/economy taxes and charges e.g. APD, and refund of the paid seat selection fee in premium economy. Wish me luck!

So here's the story. I booked BLQ - LHR on BA545 and LHR - SIN in Premium Economy on BA15, all on one ticket using Asiamiles points (Cathay Pacific), to fly on 14 August 2019. I also forked out the extra money to reserve a window seat in premium economy (no other airlines do this...). BLQ - LHR was flown by G-EUXG (it has had a number of fume events and a bird strike in recent months - see Avherald .com for more details). The plane arrived in Bologna on time, but we waited and waited and waited. Eventually I got an email from BA saying it was a technical issue with the plane. Boarded 1.5 hours late and - it should be no surprise at this point - arrived 1.5 hours late. The captain told us that even though the plane arrived on time the previous crew told them that there was a fault with the air conditioning system. So they had to get an engineer out, test the plane, turn the engines on and off multiple times. It was a clear mechanical issue. When the plane arrived at the gate at LHR I knew it was too late to make my connection. And then... the air bridge broke! We had to wait another 30 minutes for stairs and staff to arrive. In the meantime I had a chat to one the flight attendants who told me they had almost cancelled the flight out of Bologna because of the problem with the plane's air conditioning and pressurisation system.

How I wish the flight had been cancelled in Bologna!

We had to exit the plane through a rear door using stairs (the business class passengers were ropeable). As I left the plane I looked to my left and what did I see? It was G-STBB as BA15 off to Singapore. Bye bye my flight! At this point it's about 10pm, and that's where I realised my original plan was in the trash. My original plan was to have a nice journey home to Melbourne, Australia. Use points for premium economy to Singapore, arrive reasonably refreshed, hit up some hawker centres, have a nice walk up the Singapore River, then off to bed. Next day, wake up, go to the airport, chill out in a lounge and have a few beers (it's cheaper to get a lounge pass with the Regus/Dragonpass deal than to buy two beers at Changi!), catch the 3.35pm Emirates flight (EK404) back home (cheap cash economy fare), have a few beers (or whiskys) on the flight, get in at 12.30am, go home and go to sleep. It was a foolproof plan to avoid jetlag, and it would have worked, had it not been for that Bloody Awful airline...

I left the plane knowing if BA put me on one of the next day's BA services to Singapore, I'd definitely miss my EK flight home (they all get in after 4pm). But of course, we docked at the C gates at Terminal 5, which is about a billion kilometres from nowhere. No BA representatives at the gate to assist the many customers who had missed connections. Ok. Any signage or instructions anywhere about where a service desk might be? No, all the signage is pushing everyone towards the UK border. Follow everyone towards the border, still no sign of a BA service desk. Just about to be pushed towards the border by a throng of people and various officials, before I noticed a service desk a little bit further along the corridor. Great! The service staff looked under the pump, clearly rebooking customers. I was offered the 9.30am flight on Singapore Airlines in Economy, which would get in at around 6am the next day. About a 12 hour delay compared to the original BA15 flight. Took it, knowing it would get me to Singapore in time to meet my connection at least. Then the service staff tells me they can't offer me any refund or points for the downgrade because I booked with Asiamiles. This seems wrong, but whatever.

Other staff are trying to book hotels for customers. And then, a staff member notices this large pile of documents next to them - it just has BLQ written on top in large text. Guess what? Someone had already done all the work! Just no one noticed the pile of documents! So I'm given a voucher for 10 pounds, two vouchers for something called Hallmark Connections (turns out to be a bus service), a hotel voucher that says 'Amore Renn', and instructions to go to bus stop 17/18. When I get to the bus stop, which has many buses running through it, does the bus stop sign say 'Amore Ress'? No. Eventually I figured out that 'Amore Ress' probably means Renaissance, which is listed on the bus stop. But geez, they really didn't need to make this any harder than it already was. Got to the hotel around 12.30am, in my room by 12.45am. But of course, with all this, do you think I actually got good sleep between 1am and 6am, when I had to get up? Hell no!

Now the Singapore Airlines flight in Economy was pretty good (as you'd expect). But I was unlucky enough (in this case!) to get an aisle seat in an emergency row - I can only sleep on planes when I have a nice window to lean against. So the sleep deprivation really started to set in around the 10 hour mark into that 13 hour flight. But I thought, 'I land at 6am-ish and my next flight boards around 2.30pm-ish from Terminal 1, so I should go to the transit hotel in T1 and get at least 4-5 hours of decent sleep!'. WRONG. Unbeknown to me, Qantas is currently building its first class lounge right next to the transit hotel. So after a shower and trying to rid myself of the residual feeling that I was still flying, I fell asleep at around 8.30am. *LOUD SOUNDS OF CONSTRUCTION* Yeah, that's right, at 10am I was woken by the whirrs, bangs and buzzing associated with cutting and nailing together bits of timber. Wonderful! I think the transit hotel should have known about this and warned me so I could have gone to a transit hotel in a different terminal (or put me in a room farther away from the noise), because like, the primary purpose of going to a transit hotel is going to be to sleep! So that was a bust. I put up with it for a bit, but sleep was not to come. Several hours later I was finally on my way home. So horribly tired and sleep deprived. I now understand why sleep deprivation is used as a form of torture!

For all this, I feel like the €600 compensation I'm claiming under EU261 from British Airways is entirely justified and welcome. The roll on effect caused by BA's poorly maintained aircraft was massive inconvenience to me, incredible sleep deprivation, and a missed opportunity to enjoy a day in Singapore. I'm also requesting a refund of 75% of the cost of the fare (so 33,000 Asia Miles or equivalent) because of the downgrade from Premium Economy to Economy, and for the same reason remission of the APD and other taxes/charges I paid at a higher rate because I booked a premium economy fare and not an economy fare. In addition I've asked for a refund of the paid seat selection fee as well. I'll provide an update when I get a response. Wish me luck, because the process looks appallingly bureaucratic.

armouredant

Definitely sounds like you're entitled to delay and downgrade compensation. As you might have discerned from other posts upthread, your best bet with BA is to be very, very concise in your correspondence. You don't need to tell them the whole story; it's not relevant to the person dealing with your case. Stick to the hard facts; route, timings, length of delay, cause of delay, downgrade, and what you expect them to pay you. They don't have AsiaMiles to give you, so perhaps propose the price that those miles would cost to buy from Cathay Pacific (which will be hugely inflated) or the cash difference between a premium economy vs economy ticket on that route. Both will be hard to quantify, but you're entitled to it by law, so don't let them wriggle out. Soft points like sleep deprivation or noise from lounge construction won't hold any truck with the agent reading your claim, so don't waste your time.

corporate-wage-slave

Welcome to Flyertalk and welcome to the BA forum Christianziff, it's good to see you here and I hope that you will continue to participate here and in the other forums. And thank you for the summary too!

The 600€ should not be problematic, I didn't make a copy of it but I'm almost certain when I saw the dispatch notes on your service that it was marked as TECY, which generally facilitates the Article 7 payment. The seat fee should be also repaid swiftly, that's not controversial. Well done on working out the Renaissance, which is indeed a favourite hotel in these circumstances., it wasn't at all obvious. You can get to it more swiftly on the free public transport system, but I guess you would need a fairly forensic knowledge of Heathrow to work this all out.

The downgrade will be as per the Mennens calculation in the wiki and that may well be sticky. However Mennens does cover the APD issue and yes that is one of the things that should be refunded to you, I think BA will struggle on resolving downgrade reimbursement, so you should do a sensible cash equivalent calculation and hold out for that amount, it will probably take a while to resolve. By all means touch base here again at that stage. One thing that may speed things up a bit is if accepting the Avios equivalent would be useful to you, this would be far easier for BA to calculate, but obviously only offer that if you would find Avios useful. It will be about 50,000 Avios (after allowing for the BLQ sector) plus a sum of money for the cash component, about £200. That would be enough to do the same trip again on BA metal at off peak times.

WVFM

Quick one, apologies if it has been answered before, but how long does it normally take to receive a response to a compensation claim and how long before they pay out? I filed two compensation claims on Aug 1 for a flight (BA834/Jul27) which was cancelled on July 26 one claim for myself and one for my wife (different PNR). I got a response on Aug 6 and got paid (€600) on Aug 12. However my wife has not received any response or received money. There might be a difference in response time as my Exec club account is registered in Europe while my wife's account is registered in the US but was wondering when to starting chasing the claim for my wife?

KARFA

I am not an expert on EC261 so just wanted to check something for a friend who I am advising.

Friend and his family booked to LAS from LGW on BA, and were told yesterday that the return LAS-LGW on Tuesday has been cancelled. They are rebooked on a LAS-LHR flight which arrives in to London 5 hours later than the original LAS-LGW flight. I have advised that EC261 should be payable (status code on EF is OPEY) and they should claim their €600 each.

The question he asked which I wasn't sure about is other transport costs. He booked train tickets from LGW to St Pancras and then Kings Cross back north based on the original arrival time. They are no good now since they get in to LHR after the departure time of the booked trains so he has had to book new tickets. Any view on whether the new tickets could be claimed from BA?

rapidex

The train fares are consequential losses and so not covered by EU261. They will get their 600 Euro each, for which I would submit 2 separate claims and add a £50 taxi claim to each for a return to LGW. BA may question this but they may well just pay up and move on. I hope your fee for advice includes a bit for coming back and keeping us updated^

zafiragirl

We've just returned from a short holiday in the States. Booked as a BA holiday, we were due to travel on AA, DUB-PHL-LAS on 6 August, arriving in LAS at 1809. At bag drop we were advised that the inbound aircraft had been delayed and we'd be running around two hours late. At this point they rebooked our connection from PHL-LAS to the flight due to leave at 2059 local time, which should have got us into LAS at 2318. Unfortunately, the new connection was also delayed, not leaving PHL until 2325, finally arriving in LAS at 0108 on Wednesday 7th.

Aside from being told that the initial delay was due to LIAC, I have no idea what the reasons for the delays were. Is there some way of me finding this out, and do you think it's worth me submitting claim for the near 7 hour delay?

Flights affected were BA1580/AA723 DUB-PHL and AA661 on August 6th

We were also delayed, downgraded and re-routed due to tech issues on the return, but I know that doesn't fall under the scope of EU261. Bit rubbish when there's no lounge available at McCarran T1! On the upside, Mr Z has returned with his first Gold card, so he's a happy guy

Any advice most welcome, thanks x

KARFA

Thanks. I will let you know. My fee is beer tokens

corporate-wage-slave

A month is the usual advice in this thread. It may be stretched out a bit give the several days of disruption in late July and early August.

corporate-wage-slave

You need to ask in this thread within a day or two of the incident, we can't see the dispatch notes after that (and I'm not sure AA provide these details anyway). I would send a claim into AA anyway if you are not sure of the cause, you haven't got much to lose.

george77300