NickB

Who knows? I initially thought that CWS's hunch in post #257 that they must have zero'ed out inventory to give themselves some time to re-plan sounded like the most likely explanation. However, several days have now passed and I would have thought that they would have progressed on that if such was their intention so it feels like they want to continue discouraging the buying of tickets for now.
Personally, if I needed a ticket for the week before Easter, I would not wait for BA to make its mind up and would book something now to be on the safe side (not to mention that, if BA do re-open inventory, we are still not protected from a repeat IT meltdown, which. close to Easter, could turn even uglier).

orbitmic

There were three European trips I had to book for April and I have now done so. Two will be on Easyjet and one on Ryanair.

To be clear, I have never shied away from booking my trips on different airlines and not just on BA nor just on One World. I even quite like Easyjet in a particular sort of way, find this forum's occasional tendency to treat them as though they were some sort of hell on earth unfair and more than a little snobbish, and I use them a few times each year.

That said, It is certainly unusual that I will book Easyjet twice for two consecutive weeks;
It is certainly unusual that I book Ryanair which I am not a big fan of;
And it is certainly unusual that I am not planning a single BA flight in the whole of a calendar month.

Make of all of that what you will (and include in your ingredients a little annoyance at the repeated chaos - not in an angry way, but just in the sense that I'm a mundane creature who just likes to minimise unnecessary stress when travelling, and more than a little annoyance at no suggestion of any decent support for requalification for those of us with summer TP year).

mikeyfly

Just completed an excellent return to AGP on Vueling. Cost £46 return booked in Jan. Flights were clean, functional and both outbound and return touched down early. Gatwick south was busy but efficient too. Good to try other airlines and will use again if price is right

Upupintheair

So, I submitted a claim for my delayed flight to Miami on March 30th - BA 209 which arrived over 3 hours late - and just received a reply that my claim is refused as my flight was delayed due to operational reasons and 'even if our operation is only disrupted for a short period of time in the morning, this can have a knock-on effect for the rest of the day' . ' The delay was out of our control and caused unforeseen disruption to our schedule' . The delay was due to the IT outage in the afternoon during boarding, so well within their control as they control their systems and am at a loss for words at this ridiculous and inaccurate answer. I will reply to them but anybody else received a similar reply?

Daventry

Their modus operandi is to fob you off by default. I wish they were forced to pay out even a bigger comp when they try to lie their way out of it.

ajamieson

It's sickening isn't it? Waste of everyone's time. Not caught up in the current snafu, but I was once delayed LHR-IST by 4+ hours due to no crew available (literally cabin crew sitting at the gate waiting for pilots, pilots later apologised and said explicitly it was due to lack of crew). The first letter from BA blamed it on weather and said no compo. Initiated a small claims and they paid up within 48 hours.

Upupintheair

Very disappointing that after this utter failure on the 30th they are trying to wriggle out of compensating, claiming 'it is out of our their control'. Hope they see that this is actually within their control and get down to fixing the issue instead of trying to lie their way out of it!

corporate-wage-slave

Well follow the usual advice: do not get into an argument with BA on this, just ask them to confirm that their answer will not change so that you can take the matter to CEDR / MCOL. One sentence only.

choosethedrew

How delightful, such a lovely sweet-hearted company. In addition to pursuing them for every penny they are due, I hope you make their stance public on social media.

orbitmic

As cws rightly says, you are unfortunately wasting your time hoping for a change of attitude. Sadly, in recent months, it’s been ba’s default reaction to deny compensation for flights they chose to cancel as part of their Covid or breakdown management, undoubtedly hoping to discourage many from pursuing. One has to go through cedr and as NickB mentioned in another thread, only the regulator could step in and ensure that airlines have something to lose by frivolously denying claims which they “should” know are legitimate. Maybe at some point, some of us who have unnecessarily wasted time and energy to get compensation that should have been paid un controversially should complain to the regulator to ask for such action but that is another matter.

Upupintheair

Thanks, sad it has to come to this. I am unfamiliar with the cedr process but I am sure I will be able to find the info on what to do on FT.

orbitmic

Yes lots of great details in the main ec261 thread!

aoyamaguy

If BA was a bank in the U.K. and acted in this way, it probably would have lost its licence by now. What a shame airlines are not under a regulatory obligation to treat customers fairly.

gcuk

TSB Bank we’re out of action with an IT failure for weeks in 2018. I think they lost £300 million over the period, as well as loads of customers, but they’re still operating.
We’re obviously a forgiving bunch in the UK 🙂

Bohinjska Bistrica

They are a lot quicker denying week-old EC261 claims than they are at responding to complaints from the disruption at the end of February, that's for sure. Over 5 weeks I've been waiting.