MAN flights cancelled - May bank holiday weekend
 

Hi,
it would appear BA are cancelling flights over the weekend (mine on the 3rd has gone) and apparently both on Sat 1st have also been removed.

As its under 14 days, does anyone have some insight as to why?

Collapse of VFR traffic due to India redlisting?

I just posted in the rebookings thread, but my flight on Sunday has been moved back three hours as opposed to cancelled.

Same for me - I was on the 7am. It's a pain as this was a positioning flight for me to JFK. Need to find a new way down to heathrow that early in the morning ಠ_ಠ

Could you please show us the rule that airlines have to give 14 days’ notice of cancellations?

As others have said, MAN flights have been running mainly to provide connection feed to/from other routes that have recently been placed on the red list and from which flights will no longer operate. They therefore are not needed or viable commercially, and the schedule has been modified accordingly.

It would be very hard to argue that this doesn’t fall under the covid exemption for ‘extraordinary circumstances’, given that it’s a direct response to the government changing rules at short notice.

EC261 covers flight cancellations.

Cancellations and schedule changes due to Covid are indeeed extraordinary circumstances and any request for compensation will be firmly denied by the carrier.

It doesn’t say they can’t cancel a flight, it determines compensation they must pay if they do. And provides an exemption for extraordinary circumstances, which changing government regulations most definitely is.

Indeed, but there’s been no recent change in government regulations to my knowledge that stops BA flying domestically with passengers and without restrictions.

If domestic flights are being cancelled because the passengers booked on them no longer wish to travel due to the situation in India or Pakistan, so be it. But that’s a purely commercial decision.

BA could easily justify claiming exceptional circumstances for cancelling an LHR-DEL flight. But not an LHR to MAN flight.

Not sure what route / point you are going down?

I was asking the FT community if anyone has/had an insight as to why BA cancelled these flights. I wasn't implying that BA had to announce why they cancelled or that EC261 meant that had too.

This....

There have been no recent changes domestically, but that does not mean domestic flights are unaffected by the travel restrictions outside the UK. The CAA issued guidance very early on in the pandemic to help airlines understand how EC261 may be interpreted during the pandemic.

That guidance provided for circumstances where airlines may seek to cancel flights within the 14 day period due to economic and environmental consequences of operating flights with only a small number of passengers.

Where a flight is cancelled and an airline can demonstrate that the decision to cancel was related to COVID-19 restrictions elsewhere and those restrictions affected whether passengers take their flights (which could include a domestic connecting flight) then those circumstances may be viewed as extraordinary circumstances under EC261 and therefore the fixed sum compensation would not be payable.

Every case is different and should will be considered on its own merits taking in all the factors affecting a particular flight.

Thanks, was the CAA guidance binding? or advisory.

The CAA is the UK’s National Enforcement Body and the guidance is issued so airlines (and consumers) are aware of how the CAA are currently interpreting certain aspects of EC261 with respect to compensation rights that passengers might have during disruption caused by the pandemic.

I hope they don’t do the same for the end of May BH, and if they do, please before May 7th when the balance on our BAH is due! And if like this BH the West Coast line is blocked into Euston, it’s not ideal at all!