Beware- BA now blame flight cancellations on Covid-19 and refuses to pay compensation
 

Just came across this article (see link below) published in The Independent 10 May 2022.
Seems to me that BA has just come up with a self granted license to get away with murder.

https://uk.yahoo.com/news/british-ai...162001711.html

they are trying it on as the compensation bill is huge. They hope people will go away.

I suspect anyone who pushes this will be successful but if 50% of thousands of claimants give up then they save a fortune.

My own opinion is that the behaviour is disgraceful

Yes, appears that its a trick devised by BA to try to save on compensation. They need to be reported to the regulator for malpractice.

I’m not convinced this is as capricious a decision as suggested. There is an arguable basis in law to defend and given the vast sums of money involved you can’t blame an airline for trying. Do I think this defence will succeed? Very unlikely, but there is an arguable case.

Who is being murdered? Hyperbole much?

I am sorry but BA shouldn't be able to blame staffing shortages due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Yes, it's true that BA has reduced staff to save some money due to the pandemic but they should be responsible for their actions.

The phrase "getting away with murder" is a set phrase that is not normally to be taken literally. The Cambridge Dictionary defines it as follows:

Why not? Are you suggesting the pandemic is not the reason for the shortages? The question is if this is an extraordinary circumstance that might offer a defence in law under EC261.

i would suggest that 2 years into the pandemic , not being able to plan a schedule that takes accouny of staff sickness levels is a problem, especially on the scale BA has. A small number of flights i may be more sympathetic

Added to that we have heard that hiring has not gone as well as they had hoped, so inability to hire rather than covid.

I would have much more repect for them if they held their hands up, apologised and paid the compensation.

I find this tactic disgraceful

We would see all together if courts and law officials would count this situation as an extraordinary circumstance or not but I would not expect them to count this as an extraordinary circumstance as if BA could have estimated the amount of staff to furlough or to terminate their contract for cost-savings back in 2020; they could have also calculated the amount of staff needed when reinstating more flights into their schedule. Even they could have predicted this issue when making adjustments to their summer schedule back this winter but the airline went for a last minute cancellation path and blame COVID-19.

BA used the pandemic to dramatically reduce stuff numbers. They then blame sickness amongst the remaining staff for their problem, if only they knew that the pandemic increased likelihood of sickness. BA knowingly scheduled flights for which they had insufficient staff. They published the schedule to suck cash in, with minimal regard to whether they could operate it. They seek to blame gov background checks for delays in hiring, but I wonder about this being another not my fault, from a company that excels in denial of responsibility.

And those are arguments, among others, that will be advanced by a claimant in court. IIRC BA was losing £20m a day during the lockdown, I read yesterday that IAG has lost €916m in the first 3 months of this year, and a whopping €10b since the start of the pandemic. Of course airlines have had to make tough financial decisions to help them survive, after all these are (were?) extraordinary times requiring drastic action for survival.

BA will have an uphill struggle with this, but nevertheless there is an arguable defence in law and given the serious financials involved it doesn’t surprise me they are trying to run that defence. Have no doubt, other airlines will be watching very carefully.

This is not really new, there are many repors of this the last couple of weeks in this topic: (The 2021/22 BA compensation thread: Your guide to Regulation EC261/2004 - FlyerTalk Forums). Many boardmembers, including myself, already made a case with the CEDR or MCOL.

The fact that BA/IAG is losing a lot of money isn't a reason to deny compensation.

As an employer myself I am somewhat sympathic to the staff shortages of BA. Aviation is a sector that is hit hard by Covid, that there where layoffs and furlough was understandable. And although I am not completely informed about the job market in the UK here in the Netherland its almost impossible to recruit new employees. In almost every sector there are shortages, unemployment is low and there doesn't seem to be a lot of moment in the job market. Also, with the reopening / relaxing of the covid rules we have seen a lot of covid cases. Not as devastating to the public health as previous waves dut to vaccinations and the milder variant of covid but still we have had weeks this year with exceptionally high illness rates (and for me people can work from home so that lessens the impact of isolation/quarantine somewhat).

Where BA loses my sympathy is that they know they have a general shortage of staff, they are familiar with the risks of corona and still they expand the flight schedule. They reopen operation on Gatwick (for me AMS - LGW is no addition now, I rather have a reliably schedule to LHR). They cancel a lot of flights in the window that entitles compensation, I mean I would understand if they cancel for tomorrow due to acute crew shortage but if they need to cancel 10 days before the flight they surely could have done that also on 14 days or longer before the flight. They expanded quicker then they could ramp up the staff and they made commercial decisions to plan and cancel flights.

As far as I am concerned BA overextend and they made a commercial gamble that didn't pan out.

i agree for the first 2 or 3 months the pandemic can be consider extraordinary circumstance

After 2 years I think that is highly dubious .

Many businesses have had to rework plans to take the pandemic into account, including my own

I cannot go to my management now and say my teams deliverables are late because of the pandemic.

I could 2 years ago