corporate-wage-slave

Depending on the exact timings particularly of arrival, this may still be in scope for compensation. Being a TA ticket and AA 001 ticket isn't at issue since it's all about the flight operator, here BA. The get out clause is if it's extraordinary circumstances, but unless I'm much mistaken it's due to BA not having enough operational kit at the moment.

stifle

If BA are saying a flight from LHR was delayed due to a lightning strike on the inbound plane, I would say that fails the "take all reasonable precautions" test – it's reasonable for an airline as big as BA with so many flights operating from LHR to have a small number of planes on standby to take up slack in circumstances where a plane has gone tech or is otherwise unserviceable.

I would have more sympathy for such a delay at an outstation.

progapanda

Interesting travel day yesterday, was scheduled to fly INV-LHR-JFK and the INV-LHR flight got delayed 4 hours due to a hit with the baggage loading truck. That delay led to a missed connection and offer to continue my journey on VS the following morning after an overnight stay, which was not ideal. After some imploring with flight connections staff, they managed to put me on LHR-EWR, which had to return to the gate after departure due to yet another suspected contact with a ground services vehicle, leading to an additional delay of 1 hour. My final arrival time in EWR (not JFK as orig. scheduled) was just under 4 hours late (due to a long layover). I am guessing, based on earlier advice, that this would be a valid case for GBP260 the arrival at EWR notwithstanding, and even if BA tries to initially finagle itself out of paying by claiming such contact incidents are "extraordinary" and out of their control?

Would it be reasonable for me to ask BA to also cover the taxi fare from EWR (<US$90) given that I saved them the Duty of Care expenses associated with putting me up for the night at a Heathrow hotel, transit, meals and continuing travel on VS?

corporate-wage-slave

The taxi fare seems well within Right to Care and I see no problem with that one. It may be they try to cap it to around USD70 but hopefully not. Vehicle collisions are inherent and under BA's control, mostly, so grounds for EC261. If it was a rogue Loganair vehicle that crashed into the BA aircraft in INV there may be another argument.

For the delay, that's depends on timing. But in essence if the rebooking meant you were under 4 hours late versus the original schedule then it is indeed £260 if so, in terms of doors open.

TonyHancock

Just to close the loop and provide a reference - BA, via the CEDR process, accepted that I was due £520 in compensation for the delay. As has been reported the process is taking longer than normal because of the "current exceptionally high volumes of cases that CEDR has received". My complete details were submitted on the 14th Feb 2023 - BA confirmed on 21st April 2023.

dddc

Question on Right to Care. I'm having a bit of battle with Lufthansa at the mo. I had flights in Dec for LCY-FRA-SIN and onto Australia. I got a text 4 hours before the flight saying it was cancelled. Their UK number didn't connect. Their German number said they don't take calls and to use chat. Chat froze, so following advice from the Lufty forum I went to the airport. Five hours of queuing before I got rebooked out of LHR direct to SIN with SQ. Was given the option of a taxi and hotel to LHR, but preferred to spend 4 days at home instead of a hotel at LHR! While in the queue the BA flight to FRA took off.

Upon our return I put 2 claims in. 1 for EU261 (on the basis that their message didn't give a cause for cancellation and the BA Flight took off) and another for the taxi to LHR (it was a 9am flight on a Sunday) and also for the extra leg room seats we'd booked on the FRA-SIN leg at £85 each. I got a reply back on the first claim, denying payment due to adverse weather at FRA that day. (The plane did fly in the morning as I tracked it!). I chased recently for the 2nd claim under duty of care (taxi was £75) and the seat fees and I got a response saying they've already told me that they weren't obliged to pay. I think they have combined the 2 claims, but their boilerplate responses show to me they aren't reading my claim. I asked for details of their manager to escalate the claim but have had no response in over a week.

I'm gathering from what I've read re Right of Care, they should be paying that and definitely refund my seat booking fees - even if it was adverse weather. Am I correct or am I wasting my time?

KARFA

What is the reasoning for claiming the seat costs?

flarmip

Presumably because they paid for a specific seat but didn't get to fly in it? In other words, the service wasn't provided. It's not an EU261 claim really though, it's a breach of contract or Montréal Convention claim.

KARFA

LH has a mechanism to refund seat fees, like BA, in these kinds of situations. This would be a refund of what was paid for the FRA-SIN seats, but not a claim for the £85. I don't see that trying to pursue it under EC261 is actually of any use.

https://www.lufthansa.com/ge/en/seat-reservation

CKBA

BWI-LHR-VIE rebooked onto IAD-LHR-VIE arriving 3h 04min 'late' compared with original itinerary... claim submitted. (Silly really since they claimed that my original LHR-VIE (with a 2 hour rebooked connection) didn't have availability - despite having been booked on it - and full fare economy - would have saved them handing out compensation).

corporate-wage-slave

Lufthansa's approach to EC261 makes BA look angelic, but Right to Care always applies, even if delay payment is not. It's not clear exactly what happen but it look like the LHR-FRA section which was affected. You may still be able to claim delay compensation if there were other airlines such as BA with space (admittedly not easy to Australia) and LH didn't rebook you on that alternative service. But that's likely to be an MCOL case and will require some work to be successful. But Right to Care always applies, so you could consider MCOL anyway. The alternative is the German ADR entity, söp, which works like CEDR (perhaps more independently).

Seat reservation will not be part of EC261. But if you feel you are heading to MCOL you could make one submission with all components (Right to Care, Seat fee, delay compensation) and see which bits LH is prepared to fight.

Koru Flyer

Can someone help me decipher this comment/response from CR. It related to travel on SYD-SIN-LHR-SIN-SYD where the final leg was cancelled by BA (11-15) and I was rebooked in J on SQ (SIN-SYD). BA have agreed that it is 261 and have paid out the delay, but looking at the downgrade compensation, after 4 months they write..."As per our investigation, please know that the alternative flights offered to you in lower cabin was accepted. Please contact our customer support team via chat or call to get applicable refund of the difference in fares as per flight disruption."

Yes I accepted the lower cabin (J) as that is all that was offered. It was either that or wait 24 hours.

So my questions are
- Who is the customer support team? And what do I tell tell them - i.e. where are the applicable notes that I should refer to, or can they access to the CR case number. In my experience CR has paid this out in the past - why am I jumping through more hoops?
- applicable refund for fare difference as per flight disruption, does this include the 75% disruption or is just saying they will pay the fare difference without downgrade compensation? i.e. that there is some wording in that I "accepted" the lower class that denies me compensation? Or am I over reading/suspicious?
- It was a GUF I-A so they may claim there is no fare difference. I have already won, one case where BA claimed the GUF had no value, but it s painful.

Cheers,

KF

corporate-wage-slave

OK, so I am hoping you didn't ask for compensation for the downgrade, since that's the correct answer in a sense: there is no compensation for downgrades. Instead there is a reimbursement mechanism - either a straight difference or the Mennens formula as shown in the WIki. What is more it is the Refunds team, in the UK, that handles this, whereas I suspect this answer came from an offshore unit with a poor understanding of what they should be doing. Sometimes BA like to argue that Mennens doesn't apply due to passengers agreeing to downgrade, but they seem to have stopped doing that. I'll just repeat my usual advice that when downgraded it is best to ask that your PNR is amended to include the comment that the passenger reluctantly accepts the downgrade under protest. They probably won't do so, but that doesn't matter so much: because you have said that, it removes BA's ability to claim it was something you chose/ Unfortunately the Refunds team never talks directly to customers, but they will talk to the Contact Centres. So ring the Contact Centre and ask them to submit a refund using the Mennens formula.

Koru Flyer

Thanks - I asked CR for reimbursement according to the Mennens formula. So it took 4 months for them to let me know I spoke to wrong people. As the BA GGL priority email, told me to talk to CR, I will go back around the merry go round. And will call the Manchester team....

Funny you ask about comments in the PNR - In this case I could not, as I was shoved a SQ BP and told to go away, and SQ of course wanted no discussion (why should they). Incidentally though, on my next flight (SIN/SYD again) they knocked me down to J, while leaving my kids in F (told at the gate - same PNR!). In that case, I refused to board until they wrote exactly what I wanted in the PNR (the GA had to phone for permission!). Needless to say there was no issue in prompt follow-up compensation.

Thanks for your help, as always.

KF

zerovector

We boarded on time. Pre-flight, the Captain said something along the lines of: they found an external sensor was faulty and they didn't know how long it would take to fix. He gave updates about every hour and in the end he said they removed the sensor to get us going.
The Captain never said lighting strike, but it is consistent with BA's response. If the plane had just arrived, then I can accept the extraordinary circumstances argument.
Is anyone able to find out when the plane arrived? Although I'm not certain, I seem to remember that it came from SFO the day before. I would feel very confident going to CEDR if I knew that the plane sat on the ground overnight and BA hadn't fixed it (or swapped aircraft) when they had the opportunity.
BA 295 LHR-ORD 2022-07-30