LothianLad

Ah, the old thread has been shut so I can't refer back to my ongoing claim, bit of a bugger.

Anyway, there seems to be delays at CEDR, receive this today;

“Dear Passenger
We wish to advise you that your application for CEDR’s Aviation Adjudication Scheme is valid and can progress to the next stage of the process.
However, due to an influx of cases at British Airways, there will be a slight delay in our office sending these over for a response. Rest assured that the case will have a final decision submitted within 90 calendar days of being sent over to the airline.
We apologise for any inconvenience this has caused you.
Kind regards
CEDR”

taranty

As I suspect was fairly clear from the context, I meant extraordinary. Post now edited accordingly.

Well in isolation it isn't, we're talking weather leading to ATC imposed delays, not just weather on its own. As a matter of common sense I do tend to agree with you, it doesn't seem fair to passengers that there's a different outcome from the same underlying event once ATC get involved. As a matter of law though that's just the way it is based on what the regulation says. This was confirmed fairly recently by the Court of Appeal, google blanche v easyjet for details. This is a fairly good summary: https://www.outertemple.com/wp-conte...WY-summary.pdf, as is https://www.lexology.com/library/det...3-8abcd01b610d.

As per my earlier post, weather alone is not automatically extraordinary, but if the weather then leads ATC to issue instructions and obeying said instruction results in a delay it's covered under recital 15 rather than recital 14 and is automatically deemed to be an extraordinary event. The claimant in this case tried to run the same argument that you are, saying that the underlying cause of the ATC delay was thunderstorms, thunderstorms aren't extraordinary thus compensation should be paid. The Court was very clear that it doesn't matter what the cause is of the ATC instruction, if the delay is due to ATC then it's automatically extraordinary due to the clear wording of the regulation.

The "all reasonable measures" bit does still apply, but in this case I don't see an airline has any ability whatsoever to do anything about it. You're sat on the ground at Frankfurt and ATC tell you there's a 30 min delay to departure due to arrival rates at Heathrow. What's an airline meant to do about that?

HilFly

I was due to fly MAN - BOS on December 19 last year. My flight, BA 1403, due to depart MAN at 5:05pm, finally left at 6:48pm which caused me to miss my BOS flight from LHR. I reached BOS the next day.

The only reason I could get for the late departure was "late arrival of incoming aircraft". Another passenger had been told that the aircraft had arrived late into LHR from its previous flight, and that the crew had gone out of hours and they'd had to wait for a new crew. I am now kicking myself for not pushing for a more precise reason for the delay, and for not looking up LHR delays at the time. I know there were plenty of flights arriving and departing MAN more or less on time.

I have 2 questions.

Is there a way to find out the actual reason for the delay?
Can I find out if there were weather or ATC delays at LHR that afternoon?

Thank you

LothianLad

Now gone to BA now as per below;

On 27-Nov-2019, CEDR received an application for adjudication with XXXXX that has passed the initial case intake review. In accordance with the Rules, British Airways has 15 working days to:

• Attempt to settle the dispute with the customer via this platform
• Object to the adjudication on grounds of eligibility
• Submit a written Defence to the claim

What’s the likely outcome, BA just settle (hopefully)? Quick synopsis of the claim which was detailed on the 2019 thread, BA LHR to LCA departed 2:57 late due to aircraft going technical with replacement rquired, and arrived 3:08 late, BA trying to claim the 11 minutes was due to weather conditions therefore not their fault (there was no adverse weather en-route). They have also already paid out without quibble to a friend on same flight.

bisonrav

One easy way to find out what BA think is to put in a claim. I doubt you'll have much luck finding the cause for the delay this long after the event. But bang a claim in and see what they say.

MachTwoPointO

Was hoping to get someones opinion on this as it's the first time I've been delayed for this long:
The trip was LHR-DOH-CGK all on one ticket and all in Club/Business.

Was on the BA123 which was supposed to depart on Sunday 12th Jan at 19:25. The aircraft went tech and we all deplaned and waited back up at the gate. Refreshments were provided at the gate and eventually got given a new departure time of 23:15 and informed we we're going to changing aircraft and moving to another gate. Made my way back to the lounge and made my way back down to the new gate at 22:30.
The original arrival time into DOH was 05:05 but we arrived at 09:18 (4 hours 13 minutes late as seen here https://uk.flightaware.com/live/flig...935Z/EGLL/OTHH)
This meant missing my onwards connection (QR954) from DOH to CGK which was due to depart DOH at 08:25 and being rebooked onto the QR958 which departed DOH at 18:50.

During the extended stay in DOH, I tried to collect my luggage only to be told it never made the flight out of London and that my bags weren't in Doha. A quick text to my old man back home (works at check-in) and he confirmed my bag was one of about 15 not loaded and that it'd likely be on the BA123 that night.

I was put up in the Marriott, free lunch was provided with transport to/from the airport. Returned to DOH, checked-in and went to the lounge. Boarded the flight and departed on time.

Arrived into CGK on Tuesday morning at 07:18 on the QR958 (https://uk.flightaware.com/live/flig...600Z/OTHH/WIII) and made my way to the hotel.

As the original time of arrival was supposed to be Monday 13th at 21:10 but my actual arrival was not until Tuesday 14th at 07:18, can someone advise what compensation I should be looking to claim. From my understanding I qualify for the 600 Euros under EC261/2004, however my bags have arrived in CGK but the airport are refusing to deliver them to the hotel (a separate issue altogether).

I also have the BA Prem Amex which offers Travel Inconvenience Insurance. What should I be looking to claim through that as I've been without my luggage for the entirety of my trip to Jakarta, had to spend some money to buy a pack of boxers, some new socks and a few new polo shirts (I was working in Jakarta so needed to be somewhat presentable!). I've kept all the receipts but do I need to chase BA to get them reimbursed or do I use the Amex Insurance to reclaim those costs and let them sort it out with BA?

Appreciate any advice and comments.

Regards,
M2.0

corporate-wage-slave

It's up to you, but BA normally pays up quickly for essential items and I guess this is a fairly modest claim anyway. The only slight hitch with this is that formally Qatar has the responsibility to pay this even though it clearly has nothing to do with them! What I would do is claim from BA anyway, and separately from the EC261 piece (but put a 1 sentence reference that you are claiming EC261), just keep the claim as concise as possible, and make it clear you have photos of the receipts available. If BA says "speak to Qatar", I would in fact speak to Amex at that point.

For the EC261, then the claim seems robust to me, you arrived more than 4 hours late to the final destination, BA is the operating carrier, so just put another claim in for that, keep the details short, all you need to say is you were on BA123, late into Qatar, very late into Jakarta. I doubt there would be much problem on that one.

MachTwoPointO

Perfect. I'll get that in an email to them now.
Thanks!

SD93

Hi All, hoping for some advice on the below - apologies in advance if I am missing something obvious in the process!

I had a 2-4-1 booking from Heathrow to Narita next august. We have been downgraded to club world due to an equipment change on this route. I only found this out my randomly checking the booking online. When I first contacted BA they offered the standard options, however I am looking to claim for downgrade compensation which I believe is due under ec261.

Problem I seem to be having is that because we haven't travelled yet, no one at BA wants to speak to me about it. I have rang customer relations, who put me through to the refunds team, who put me through to the avios team.... who then put me back to the customer relations team. All of this has been over the phone during my working days and has taken a good couple of hours, believe it or not, and I am no further on.

Is there a way I can log this claim online with BA or an email address I can use so I don't have to waste more time on the phone?

corporate-wage-slave

No you can't advance an EC261 claim until travel has been completed. What if you simply cancelled your flight the day after getting the reimbursement?

After departure you can make a claim for this, in the past this would have been refused due to the "cancelled/reticketed" argument (which I propose we don't reheat here); however more recently BA have been more amenable to reimburse by the EC261 formula. The one thing BA should be willing to do is to refund the Avios difference, but there are reports that there again they prefer to do this after travel. If there is other availability in CW and you just want the Avios back, then a friendly agent will probably do a cancel / rebook for you and you would get the Avios returned more swiftly.

SD93

Thanks very much for clarifying! One more question from me then - I much prefer the idea of flying club and getting a 75% avios refund, as opposed to switching to Haneda and flying First. However, if the refund wasn't certain after flying then I would maybe change tactics.

So my question is, will BA try and avoid such a claim from me after the flight by saying I refused other reasonable options? Or am I well within my rights?

I appreciate people will have different opinions on the above strategy but it is just too tempting!

corporate-wage-slave

BA generally have struggled with the reimbursement for downgrade aspect of EC261. They have their own involuntary downgrade formula, which for revenue tickets is sometimes more generous than the Mennens formula. In your case it definitely won't be more generous, for redemptions they keep the voucher and they refund the Avios (and maybe a few Avios extra for customer relations). Now I have followed a few other cases where BA upped their offer - reluctantly - to somewhere near the EC261 formula, but I really don't think you can assume it will be easy. You may need to start the MCOL process (this isn't a good one for CEDR due to the lack of senior legal rulings).

So (a) assume you'll just get the Avios back (b) you may - eventually get the 75% back but it isn't guaranteed. In which case you have to balance that on the Haneda issue. Legally I would have thought that the offer of HND would slightly weaken your case, but ultimately the wording of the Regulation works to your benefit, in my opinion. I'm not a lawyer.

LothianLad

So today, a settlement offer received from BA for €400 each so a resolution at last.

Quite why BA didn't settle when first contacted I don't know. Well I do know, it's to ensure the minimal amount of passengers get paid compensation. Pretty poor behaviour.

Either way, thanks to everyone who chipped in with info.

Finkface

Somewhat of a strange one and not sure where to go at this point. I (finally) chased up BA again in late Dec (yeah, I know I said I was giving up but I gave it one more try) for hotel costs for our canceled flight in Sept due to the pilot strike. BA tells me it was paid out in Nov. My bank didn’t have it and after much investigation said that BA had put in the wrong routing number (which I had confirmed to them no less than 3 times) so my (Canadian) bank returned the payment to them. My bank gave me the return confirmation code and proof that the funds were returned to BA’s financial institution.

I have now been going back and forth with BA for over a month with BA saying it was paid out and they won't raise the payment again. They won’t check with their bank to verify the payment was returned. My last email from them this week said “The bank transfer was already accepted by the bank and a payment was definitely paid out. I've tried to find out if we able to re-raise a transfer again to your bank details but unfortunately we've already sent the money to the account you provided us with.”

Well, yeah, the account number was correct but the routing number was not so it was returned to them. And yeah, it was initially accepted but when the payment had the incorrect routing number, my bank returned it to BA’s bank the following day. So they have the money back and won’t even check with their bank.

So what do I do now? If they were in Canada, I would just file in Small Claims Court as I have the proof from my bank that the funds were returned. Do I just give up as they seem to have washed their hands of it? Would CEDR or MCOL even apply in these circumstances? This whole thing has been far more hassle than it is worth.

corporate-wage-slave

CEDR applies. As mentioned some months ago, it's best not to over-extend the dialogue, just submit the CEDR claim, which you can do as a Canadian resident, on the basis of non payment of Right to Care, and if you wish any other costs, reimbursement or compensation that you feel are owed to you under EC261. The onus is on BA to ensure you get the EC261 payment and for Right to Care there is no point making this more complicated.

CEDR has a backlog at the moment (due to the pilots' strikes) so they seem to be operating about 2 weeks longer than normal, But most of the strike cases are now solved so hopefully this won't be too long a delay.

Keep it simple! It's only hassle because you have allowed it to become so.