PUCCI GALORE

It is unclear to me who "they who purchased the tickets are. My own thoughts are that I would be asking them why the OP was booked on a Low Cost carrier when there are flights by Air Canada between the same points. It may well be that AC would have had policies in place that would have alleviated the OP's inconvenience. Why did "they" book the OP with BA in the first place when they could have flown AC all the way from LHR? I can only imagine that it was dearer as it does not make sense to me.

I think, like the others, that this is an insurance issue. Shame.

UKtravelbear

Dear lady the 'they' appear to be the conference organisers that the OP attended. Probably booked based on price or some corporate deal.

AC also would not have prpvided a hotel either based on this (unless you bought into the 'on my way' scheme)

corporate-wage-slave

I think I know the answer to that one. Westjet used to have an extensive codeshare arrangement with BA, which ended in 2016. Before then BA.com used to give fares to all sorts of Canadian destinations. That ended but the interline ticketing arrangement continues to live on. So for example if we look at fare basis LLX0C1B4 for LHR to YHZ, with a base fare of £575 return, we see the following condition:

Transfers:
1 PERMITTED [TRANSFER] BETWEEN AA/BA/IB AND WS IN
CANADA IN EACH DIRECTION

and the same fare basis is used for allowing transfers on to AA services (though 2 are allowed in that situation) when it is a flight involving the USA.

The point being that Air Canada is in Star Alliance and flies out of LHR, so with little incentive to give good interline prices to a competitor.

PUCCI GALORE

That was my inference as well - but it is not clear.

PUCCI GALORE

That makes perfect sense - I had no idea that they had such a close relationship.

Jagboi

Depending on what date this was, AC used to fly the route between LHR and YHZ on the 737MAX and the nonstop service has been suspended since those planes were grounded. Instead AC have been routing the traffic through YYZ and YUL, so the BA/WS combo might have had available seats that AC didn't, or more likely cheaper.

Tiger_lily

Yes. I used to be able to get to smaller Canadian cities on a single BA ticket with BA flight numbers. After 2016 this was no longer possible.

OW is somewhat in the wilderness in Canada now. You can still buy tickets from BA that include segments on WS but the timings are often rather naff and restricted to very specific flights.

WS now seems to be aligning itself more and more to DL and Skyteam in general. AC is, well, AC and it’s *A all the way.

beckyb

Thanks people.

Unfortunately it looks like my various insurers won't cover it, each one of them has an exception this falls into.

I guess I didn't realise that despite it being a ticket to London bought via a British airline my European rights wouldn't cover me. MSE suggests in fact it's just untested in courts and in fact there is a chance it would be covered, but obviously the airlines will take a position favourable to them until proven wrong.

Exceptionally frustrating given how loyal I have been to BA.

Thanks

Becky

Dave Noble

I cannot see that there is any way that a domestic flight outside of EU being cancelled/delayed would have any chance of being viewed as covered - not surprised that it hasn't been tested since it is clear from regulation that such a flight is outside the scope

1. This Regulation shall apply:
(a) to passengers departing from an airport located in the territory of a Member State to which the Treaty applies;

(b) to passengers departing from an airport located in a third country to an airport situated in the territory of a Member State to which the Treaty applies, unless they received benefits or compensation and were given assistance in that third country, if the operating air carrier of the flight concerned is a Community carrier.

It isn't anything to do with BA that Westjet had a flight issue - Westjet is required to rebook, which it did - BA has zero responsibility here - BA is a business not some family member - being 'loyal' means nothing

corporate-wage-slave

The bit that may be interesting to see in court would be if the Westjet flight was a codeshare, rather than an interlined ticket. There is a recent ruling that had Westjet done something wrong in the London->Halifax direction then BA is now liable. So it stands to reason that this judgement may work the other direction too, so Halifax to Europe. But you weren't on a codeshare so it's a bit moot. I can't see any other ground for WS being pinged for this by EC261, and as you noted Canada is introducing some limited consumer protection in this area.

Moreover, all EC261 would have done in your case would be to cover the hotel and food bill until there was a flight rearranged by Westjet + BA. There is no automatic right to another service on another airline on a different route. And had you stayed in Halifax I suspect your insurance would have paid the hotel bill, therefore I'm not sure this is adding a lot.

But hopefully your case is an eye-opener to others, and indeed will perhaps encourage people to look at their insurance - or indeed self insurance - and run some realistic scenarios through the small print to see if the outcome is acceptable or not.

RichyC

I had the exact same issue coming out of Halifax a couple of months ago. Weather in the Toronto/Montreal area disrupted my trip home - no flights could leave Halifax to those cities meaning I couldn’t meet my connection, which ran to time.

I managed to persuade WS to put me on the direct service to LGW instead, which was a painful flight but at least I got somewhere close to where I had intended to be. Successfully claimed ORC too which was nice. (BA flight was in J).

rereading this, it doesn’t appear to help the OP at all. Oops.

Crofton138

After re-reading this thread, I'm still unsure why you've got a problem with BA. The issues that you've encountered are due to the weather and then WestJet's service recovery. As many people have commented, this isn't for BA to resolve but WestJet and your travel insurers (who don't seem to want to help).

SK AAR

As already pointed out many times above, BA has nothing to do with this. EU Reg. 261/04 doesn't apply. Period. Case closed. Move on!

PUCCI GALORE

Exactly so. Becky - I may be missing something here - but the more that I read this, one question emerges. Was this conference for work? If that is the case, surely this £730 should be their expense rather than yours?

KARFA

The ground seems to be shifting on that and I wouldn't be so confident on saying it absolutely isn't covered these days. Here is a nonEU flight by a nonEU airline which was delayed and which the ECJ thinks is covered as it was part of a single reservation

Recent ECJ judgement CS and Others v České aerolinie a.s. C-502/18

CURIA - Documents

a bit of summary

Quote:

...in the case of connecting flights, where there are two flights that are the subject of a single reservation, departing from an airport located within the territory of a Member State and travelling to an airport located in a non-Member State via the airport of another non-Member State, a passenger who suffers a delay in reaching his or her destination of 3 hours or more, the cause of that delay arising in the second flight, operated, under a code-share agreement, by a carrier established in a non-Member State, may bring his or her action for compensation under that regulation against the Community air carrier that performed the first flight.