Globalist

23.25, landed in Amsterdam after a really short flight. Of course landed on the 5th runway so we will be spending a bit of time getting to the gate.

Already have an apology email from BA blaming the entire delay on a fuel emergency in Amsterdam.

Globalist

Globalist

And a text message

corporate-wage-slave

You're going to gate D18. A somewhat unfortunate flight, you're going to be 3 hour 3 minutes late, but I think your only compensation will be the pre-departure biscuit.

RGS5526

Could EC261 be interpreted to cover instances where delays are caused by operational failures by airport authorities, such as inability to refuel aircraft? And how about denied boarding due to unreasonable delays in security checks?

Globalist

golfmad

I don't see how it could. Those reasons for delay are outside the control of the airline and would therefore be considered as 'extraordinary'.

cauchy

Well the courts have dramatically increased the scope of EC 261 - initially it was no compensation for delays, technical faults being de facto exceptional circumstances, etc. - would they be inclined to do so again?

BOH

I had a similar comedy of errors flight about 4 months ago out of LGW. The sequence was:

1. The gate was changed very shortly after the "go to gate xx" indication came up at T-50 - so most people headed to it. This gate was right up near the end of one of the piers
2. The new gate was one of the LGW-S bus gates, (gates 90-95 IIRC) right back near the main shopping area. Due to the original gate error, a lot of pax turned up late
3. We are now at the original departure time +10 and still at the gate waiting for he second bus to turn up. This turned up at T+15
4. Our aircraft is actually parked somewhere over near the North Terminal so quite a lengthy ride.
5. When boarding is complete the captain announces the APU is faulty and we will require an air start. This unit was already there and connected and they tried without success to start up the first engine. Lots of blokes in hi-viz outside fiddling with controls and scratching heads near the air start trolley
6. Captain announces the air start trolley has a faulty hose and cannot supply enough air, we must wait for a replacement.
7. After 10 more minutes, Captain announces the good news is the new start trolley has arrived, bad news is we have now missed our ATC slot.and we have permission to start engines in about 20 minutes. We are now some 1 hour past our original push-back time.
8. At last we are off at around T + 80 minutes and taxi out.
9. After a 15 minute or so taxi and hold in the queue we reach the active runway and without stopping promptly turn straight back off it and quickly come to a stop. Captain announces with some resignation "it really is not our day" and the reason we are still here is the inbound aircraft that landed just before reported debris on the runway so now an inspection must take place.
10. After a 10 minute further delay for the inspection we are finally off, some 110 minutes after scheduled time.

:D!

Most if not all train operators in Great Britain offer Delay Repay regardless of the cause of delay or whose fault it was. (If you feel it is morally wrong to benefit from another passenger's illness or the like, you can choose not to claim, though in some cases if you have an online account from which you booked a ticket, it may be automatically paid).

I can certainly see some advantages to making airlines pay compensation regardless of the cause, perhaps with some adjustment of the amounts. It may be more efficient to have large companies take out insurance to cover compensation claims from external causes, rather than having hundreds to thousands of passengers fighting individual battles with travel insurers.

tuonopepper

I'd agree with this, I assume the TOC then claim back losses from Network rail for example if its a signalling failure, I reasons airlines couldn't do the same.

My train tickets are generally work related so any delay repay I recieve gets donated to charity.

Globalist

I agree, I don't think BA in this case was responsible for the entire delay but they did contribute to it. If the flight had left with less than an hour delay the fuel issue in AMS would not have started yet. If the 1st officer did not have to be changed after doors close we could have been ok.

That said, AMS was responsible but there is no way to claim from them. Only the party who has a contract with them could make a claim. So maybe if the scope of the regulation gets expanded to all events except weather and the airline can further claim from other parties involved, that would have been a way to compensate for the less than ideal experience yesterday.

Globalist

Muttley

Had an extremely painful positioning flight from BA442 LHR-AMS yesterday as part of LHR-AMS / AMS-LHR-CPT.

1. Initially the flight was delayed due to late incoming aircraft
2. No-show required hold luggage to be off-loaded (caused us to miss slot delayed on stand)
3. During taxi told insufficient fuel to get plane back (due to AMS fuel issue)
4. Returned to remote stand to refuel
5. No ETA due to extreme weather so passengers given chance to deplane (after some deliberation we did)
6. Took over two hours to get baggage back

Then long conversation with the only ticketing staff member on duty in T5 to protect LHR-CPT as we couldn't get to AMS, which they agreed to do. A very long night with upset children. Turned out the aircraft arrived before we got home! Some decisions are impossible to get right!

Crew stated alcohol couldn't be served on the ground, only soft drinks, even in CE. Just as well in the end, as I had to drive home!

Andriyko

But then the flight would have landed after the issue had started with no way of getting out of AMS. In hindsight, it was a good thing that the outbound flight was delayed as the inconvenience for inbound passengers would have been much worse.

Tobias-UK

Muttley

Sorry you missed your slot, I think there were 8 or us who requested to be offloaded. I agree the crew were excellent. As I previously mentioned it was a difficult decision. We had to weigh up the risk of not making it to AMS that evening or indeed whether the evening return flight back to LHR would have sufficient fuel or issues with the storm to get us back for our LHR-CPT connection.

Whilst we're lucky BA understood our predicament and protected our flight to CPT, it's still a worrying position to be in. I was given no written confirmation that I can safely skip AMS-LHR and that the LHR-CPT et al is protected. I called the Silver call centre this morning and was told that there are comments on the booking so should be fine. "Should" be fine!

Aiming to get to LHR early for check-in. Probably before the AMS-LHR flights closes. Also because I'll be parked at T5 and have to get over to T3 with baggage. Still waiting on a decision from Heathrow parking whether they will allow me to return to my booked parking slot eventhou I left the airport last night.