Passmethesickbag

I made a claim on 31 July. Received a holding e-mail on 30 August, saying "We wanted to let you know that we haven’t forgotten about your case. We’re currently experiencing very high volumes, which means we’re taking longer than we’d like to send you a reply. But we’re doing our best so please rest assured we’ll be in touch as soon as possible.". I've never claimed EC261 with BA before, but the length of this delay seems out of order. Is this the point when I send them a letter informing them that I will take legal action if they don't respond?

rtl198

hi c-w-s,

many thanks for your prompt and helpful reply, much appreciated for this and all your input on this forum on a number of issues

rtl198

dougzz

Is there a list of the flight cancellation codes anywhere?

What is the code POLN ?

corporate-wage-slave

N means No Article 7 compensation. POL I have no idea, do you have any clue from what the captain said?

dougzz

It was the late flight to Barcelona from Heathrow on Saturday just gone, 19th Oct. BA0482. Email offered no reason, just rebooking option.

corporate-wage-slave

Ah, well that extra information points to the strikes - including of the Iberia ground staff - and political challenges in Barcelona on the date in question.

wytco0

I am in exactly the same situation with the same dates. good luck with your case.

Jmaw

A friend was delayed on a Qatar flight, booked via BA, which caused a missed connection.

Qatar have initially rejected the compensation, claiming extraordinary circumstances. I've said to ask them to provide evidence of the extraordinary circumstances, is there any way of checking what caused the delay to provide some evidence for her?

Flight was QR006 on 7th October 2019

Is there also any point making a claim to BA or is it right to deal with Qatar as the operator ?

Thanks

corporate-wage-slave

It's definitely Qatar that is responsible here, being the operating airline. There is no requirement in the Regulation for you to prove anything, it is entirely down to Qatar to prove that the circumstances were extraordinary.

Qatar forum is probably the best place to check this with, since they will know more about how Qatar operate in this space, but Qatar isn't part of an Alternative Dispute Resolution service, so you would either have to liaise with the CAA (assuming there is a UK component to this) or use MCOL (also assuming you are UK based).

romana2

Last year in April, May I flew Salt Lake City - Seattle - London Heathrow - Edinburgh with BA.

The flight Seattle - London was delayed due to checks after lightning strike, and in the end I missed my flight to EDI and was rebooked. Door opened 4:03 later. I tried claiming several times on BA without luck. They say the lightning strike was an extraordinary event that could not have been predicted or precented.

I'd like to try again, maybe via an agency. But now I'm slightly into problems: I still have the flight number for Seattle - LHR, but I don't know the time I arrived there. I don't know the flight number anymore for the flight I was booked on, but only that door opened 04:03 later than scheduled. BA website doesn't have any info anymore and their claim systen is set up such that I can't see the messages I sent to them, but only their answer.

Any suggestion on this? Has jurisdiction changed? What agency might be able to help without billing me if they are not successful? How do I get the missing info? Or should I just let it go?

corporate-wage-slave

The claim firms have access to databases which will have all the timing information. You also don't actually have to do any legwork here if you carry it through personally either, since if you take the matter to CEDR or MCOL, BA will give chapter and verse on the timings.

The bigger issue is whether lightning strike is a valid "extraordinary circumstance" or not, and there are legal rulings that point both ways on this. What is not disputed is that even if you do regard it as extraordinary, the airlines still need to resolve any checks within the ambit of "all reasonable measures". The underlying debate is whether lightning strikes are inherent or not, bird strike apparently is not inherent, but there is some body of thought that says lightning strikes are inherent - therefore airlines should be able to run their operations knowing this may happen from time to time.

Bott and Co is the only claims manager that I would suggest (but not recommend) here, since they do have a good record in pushing for their clients. However at least on paper they are only doing what you would have to do yourself, but if you are not confident of the process then I can see the value of a claims manager. Many claims managers aren't interested in the tricky cases either.

Anns76

Today I opened my email and BA responded to my CEDR claim and reached a settlement of €1200 for my daughter and I. Wow! This was a process. It took 11 weeks.

romana2

Thanks a lot for your thoughts. I'm tempted to give it out of hand as BA doesn't even address my comments at all but just keeps on replying with the same canned answer. So basically, I'm not getting anywhere. If this means I'll lose a big chunk of the compensation then that's fine compared to not receiving anything at all.

palmanfr

Hi everyone, A short update on my case (delay of 3h45min of BA364/22SEPT LHR-LYS, supposed to depart at 1815 GMT).
I filed a CEDR case a few weeks ago for my girlfriend and now BA responded to it defending their decision not to compensate and also providing a very detailed letter (5 pages, citing a lot of precedent court cases) and 11 attachments, including the list of spare aircrafts available that day. Basically, this delay was mainly due to a medical emergency on the previous flight while on the ground in BCN and some ATC restrictions in BCN, on flight BA407. They say that they budgeted a total of 5 spare long-haul and 5 spare short-haul aircrafts for Sept. 21st and 22nd, and they mentioned that having any more spare aircrafts would be an "intolerable sacrifice" (legal term used in a courts decision). On Sept 21st (the day before), all the short-haul aircrafts were already used as 8 aircraft were having issues. The day of the flight (Sept 22nd), only one aircraft was available in LGW (G-MIDO) starting at 1600 GMT - but it was in LGW, not LHR. Looking at their maintenance logs, it seems that G-EUUM was available at 1400 GMT at LHR (The flight BA364 was scheduled for 1815GMT and they knew that the delayed plane G-TTOE operating BA407 BCN-LHR left the gate at 1850 GMT and took off only at 1915 GMT). I am not sure why this aircraft was not used for this flight, as it's first flight was the next day to PSA. They claim that by 2100 GMT / 22SEP they fully recovered all 5 spare aircrafts they budgeted, but it was anyway too late to have them operate BA364. However, when I look at the list of the spare aircrafts they claim to have had available, one was actually stuck for 3 more days in DLM due to an engine surge (G-GATP), G-EUUW was still in the air operating BA2573 PMI-LGW and G-EUYI was also still in the air operating BA609 OLB-LHR. So I guess they are using this argument to prove that their scheduling of spare planes was appropriate and sufficient, but when I investigate more (using flightradar24 historical data for e.g), I can see that the numbers just don't pile up. This does not explain why they did not commission G-EUUM or even G-MIDO for this flight instead.

I know that there are a lot of details provided, and I will reply to the CEDR with those findings from my side, together with the fact the delay on her flight was due to events which happened on another flight before and that it is BA's responsibility to put reasonable efforts to have good operations, especially out of their home base of LHR, but do you think I have a case to pursue ? I certainly would not have pursue if she was a passenger on board BA407. I tried to look for a legal precedent on delayed flights because of knock-on effects but I was not very successful besides an Macclesfield court decision in 2014 (which was a county court, so I cannot really use that) and the Eglitis v Latvijas Republikas Ekonomikas Ministrija ruling BA mentions on their reply.

Thanks for your help !

corporate-wage-slave

It's certainly interesting the lengths they have gone through here, and you seem to have found some holes in there logic anyway.

I would query whether (a) having 6 spare aircraft - actually 1 in reality - is intolerable (you are correct, that phrase comes from CEDR rulings) - is this not inherent in their operations? And one working aircraft for a large and profitable airline at their global hub hardly seems overkill (b) maybe if they had taken more care with their fleet they would not be 5 / 10 aircraft down on one day. (c) what evidence is there that they looked to other carriers to rebook passengers? (d) what evidence is there that they didn't operate their other French services to do a second stop (e.g. ex CDG or NCE?).

We are in the "all reasonable measures" game here, and I'm not seeing that proved here.