cdtdevelopments

We traveled recently to las on a BA ticket via jfk and lax. The last sector was to be flown with AS, however after being delayed for a couple of hours the flight was then cancelled. We were told the next available flight was in three days time, no alternative airline was offered. We were also not offered any accommodation, the cancellation occurred at 11.30 pm. We subsequently booked a flight the next day with Southwest (WN) and sorted our own accommodation for that night. To top this AS then lost our luggage (Returned three days later).
we have approached BA for compensation regarding this and they have told us to contact as. Is this correct? We purchased the ticket from ba.

SK AAR

Although BA is the ticket issuing carrier, the liability rests with AS as actual carrier. You will get nowhere with BA on this.
EU Reg. 261/04 is not applicable since the flight was in the US and AS is not a community carrier. You will have to rely on AS terms and conditions. Good luck!

alex67500

I'm afraid consumer protection is not as good in the US. There's maybe a thread about DOT rules somewhere? Otherwise it's a case for your travel insurance.

AJA_

Id say this is a case for claiming off travel insurance.

Was the LAX-LAS sector on a BA flight number or AS? If it was a BA flight number I'd say you have more luck in claiming off BA.

Also was there a break in the journey between arriving in LAX and departing again ie did you spend any time in Los Angeles? If so then EC261 would not apply as the LAX-LAS sector is not departing the UK or EU so outside the scope of EC261.

If however there was supposed to be no break in the journey ie you were supposed to fly LHR-JFK-LAX-LAS on one ticket with BA flight numbers and in one go then i believe EC261 does apply. I believe it also applies even if you have the operating airline flight code as long as the journey was supposed to be flown in one go. The reason being is essentially you bought a ticket LHR to LAS the fact it was via two other US airports would be irrelevant other than the fact that the last sector did not occur meaning you would arrive in LAS more than 3 hours later than scheduled.

corporate-wage-slave

Yes, EC261 may apply but we don't have the details here to be clear.

It's a tricky one. BA is your agent, so only indirectly responsible for what AS did, but they are supposed to liaise with AS to rectify the problem here. Ideally you would have travel insurance since this would be an easier way to resolve this. If you are looking for a direct refund of AS' flight then BA should take that on and retrieve that from AS. However in practical terms you are best off raising a complaint with AS, who will have better customer relations than BA, at least in terms of timely responses. There is a wider issue of BA (etc) not meeting your contract so there is also the MCOL route but I would regard this as the last fallback if all else fails.

deep_south

As an aside, check your return is still there, as the computer may think that you missed a leg and so cancelled the rest of your itinerary.

RRROOO

If ticket was purchased on BA on a through ticket (as someone mentioned above), BA is responsible. BA is ONEWORD with AS/AA/B6 now. I find it hard to believe there wasn't a seat on AA , AS or B6 to your destination (or anywhere close by).

Deep South is correct in making sure your return flight is still there. Looks like you'll have to call BA to make sure.

South London Bon Viveur

The (in my view) relatively straightforward notion that if you buy a ticket with a carrier then that carrier is responsible for fulfilling its obligations under that contract seems to not apply in aviation. Ba are certainly not unique here. IB have completely dissociated themselves from a very long delay, for a flight carried out by VY, and offered no assistance whatsoever.

Steve M

It does in fact apply to aviation. The thing is, the meaning of "obligations under the contract" is based on the actual obligations that are spelled out in the actual contract, not just on what you think they should be.

Well, there's really nothing else that's "close by" to LAS. In fact, I don't think there's any commercial airport that's closer to LAS than LAX and also has oneworld service direct from LAX, so no options there.

Also, good point about AS not being the only option: LAX is a oneworld hub of sorts - they in fact have (or at least had pre-COVID) roving agents in oneworld vests (and not of particular carriers) to help with issues.

This doesn't help you at this point, but you should be aware that in such a situation, the question they're answering is what is the next available flight on the carrier you're originally ticketed on that has confirmed seats available. As already mentioned above, with a bit more work they should have been able to make a oneworld accomodation. And, even absent that, the "3 days is the soonest" is only the answer to when they can give you a confirmed seat at the moment. Something may open up sooner, and you always have the option of going standby on an earlier flight. You were stuck for the night at LAX no matter what due to the late hour, but AS has 3 daily LAX-LAS nonstop flights. You could have shown up and gotten on the standby list for each flight until you finally made it on. It's unlikely it would have taken 3 days. In your specific case, I probably would have done the same thing (i.e. buy a ticket on WN to have a sure thing), but in general, I think that people often misunderstand their situation when they are re-acommodated on a flight days out.

Tragedie_v_JZD

I dont think you are right with this. If the reservation was on one ticket and that last break in LAX was not a stop over, whole trip is considered as one. so, if it was (for example) LHR-JFK-LAX-LAS, it is considered as one trip from EU. And in that case, there is liability also for non-eu carrier.

(the second question, of course, is chance that you will get any compensation from AS, ad there are not so much possibilities how to enforce them).

Tragedie_v_JZD

Unfortunately not. In the meaning of EU rights for compensation, responsible is not ticketing carrier, but operating carrier of the flight which caused delay.

Tobias-UK

Just as a point of clarity, whilst B6 (JetBlue) has a partnership with AA, it is not a member of the oneworld Alliance. There are no JetBlue earning or burning opportunities with BAEC.

SK AAR

For a domestic flight in the US, AS couldn't care less where the OP commenced travel with another carrier, even under same ticket. To AS the OP had a ticket LAX-LAS; nothing more. Trying to persuade AS to adhere to EU Reg. will lead to nowhere.

In the same way that it has established many times that AA is not liable (under EU Reg.) for delay or cancellation of their flight in respect to a pax arriving on BA with a connecting AA flight.

Ticketing carrier is never liable under EU Reg. 261/04. Period.

corporate-wage-slave

This is mostly correct, but the CJEU has looked at cases involving codeshares where a trip started in Europe, stopped over in Dubai (in one case) and ended up in Asia. The courts have held that in some circumstances the Dubai to Asia sector is in scope for consumer protection.