MrsW

My son flew from LGW to AMS on 12 Dec. His flight was delayed by seven hours owing to a late arriving aircraft. This info was on the website (attached) plus the pilot gave it as a reason too during the boarding announcement. The afternoon flight on that route departed within 20 minutes of schedule. We submitted the online form for EC261 and were rejected. The reason given was a weather delay. Could someone more experienced plse advise on whether we should push back against this decision. It seems wrong to me. He has been given 10,000 Avios as an apology. He’d rather have €400.

dakaix

It is unfortunately too late to retrieve the dispatch records for that flight now, they're generally only available publicly (albeit via subscription) for up to 48 hours. Those would have included a coded reason for any delay/cancellation.

Looking at the news & weather from the 12th December that looks to have been in the middle of the snow & cold snap. Weather data from Amsterdam on the morning of 12th December shows there was freezing fog in the morning (between 7-9am local time), and therefore it's quite possible that the airport will have placed a restriction on the airlines (requiring a delay) - and unfortunately weather delays are exempt from compensation.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-63938958
https://www.wunderground.com/history...ate/2022-12-12
https://www.wunderground.com/history...ate/2022-12-12

The late incoming aircraft is certainly true, but that is only because BA scheduled an aircraft that had previously operated the morning's service to Verona. Likely the aircraft intended to operate to Amsterdam ended up being used somewhere else - and so the Verona aircraft was substituted in on the day, when they were ready to go. This is unfortunately just a consequence of the earlier delay - and not itself justification for compensation either unfortunately.

Notwithstanding either of these points however BA is on the hook for duty of care, including any meals, telephone call costs that your Son may have incurred.

corporate-wage-slave

The aircraft leaving 15 minutes early (which isn't unusual with AA incidentally) clearly didn't help either, but MCT is 90 minutes. Now if doors open was 09:29 that's just over MCT, but you mention something about a delay in disembarkation, and it doesn't normally take 15 minutes to get off shorthaul aircraft. Another factor is whether it really was the only option to arrive 24 hours late, Did your friends identify other options and ask BA to use other airlines, for example? Was this refused? So unfortunately this is somewhat less than clear cut, but it would certainly seem something to take to CEDR, depending on the unstated factors.

MrsW

Thanks for replying

corporate-wage-slave

The pilot's statement strikes me as very important and should be the basis of the claim. If it was mainly due to a lack of available aircraft at LGW - well it's odd on many levels, but usually an 07:45 is from an aircraft there overnight, not inbound. Fairly generous on the Avios though, it's usually 5k for this. I would seek to send this to CEDR as soon as you can, and not extend the dialogue with BA.

MrsW

I have just checked one of the other screen shots that I saved from that day and seemingly the EasyJet flight managed to leave on time. If it was a weather delay wouldn’t EasyJet have been delayed by seven hours as well.

My son spent this time in the lounge, drinking himself silly. So he has no expenses to claim.

dakaix

Agreed - I would have expected the aircraft already to be there. We don't know however what previous registrations were attached to that flight on the day - because both reasons could well be true (i.e. BA knew there would be a lengthy delay, used the original AMS aircraft to operate something else, and then swapped in the late VRN aircraft to back-fill). As you say though CEDR will force BA to release their flight record, which may well throw up more information.

This is certainly good evidence to put towards a case with CEDR, as CWS has said. In their response to your initial CEDR claim BA will provide a record of the flight details, which you will have the opportunity to respond to. Given the U2 service operated to schedule it certainly suggests it was more of an issue with BA's operation, but it's hard to say without more details. Either way though, I hope the lounge bar went someway to offsetting the pain!

Sigwx

Here is the best I can offer. A screen shot with the ‘zero rate’ for LGW on the latter evening and over night on the 11th into the 12th. LGW ATC have had severe staffing issues for quite a while now.
A zero rate is in effect a shut down of the runway for a simplistic explanation.
So if your son’s aircraft was inbound to Gatwick late at night the evening before, it may well have diverted and ended its day somewhere that is not Gatwick.

Weather did cause a number of delays but as you’ve seen, other operators were less ATC slot constrained that day and there wouldn’t have been a 7 hour slot.

So it is plausible that there was no aircraft as no one was allowed in or out late evening and over night on the 11th.

So as CWS states, use what was explained at the time as the basis of the claim, however do expect strong push back. Will be interesting to see the outcome.



That is the best I can offer in terms of information I am afraid.

corporate-wage-slave

In which I would add a key factor is that LGW is one of BA's 3 hub airports and therefore should have more resilience than to depend on the previous night's inbound to provide hardware the following morning. So maybe Extraordinary Circumstances (the night before) but not "all reasonable measures" - they should have had aircraft available for this. There is also the "knock-on" argument, particulary given easyJet's services (and BA's other flights) were not affected.

Samaras

They weren’t too sure what caused the issue between the doors opening and disembarking, which does not help. If only they had flown from GLA as I landed at a similar time as them that day and I had no issues.

The problem they had was once they got to T3 and the flight was gone they were directed to the BA desk to rebook. It was a Sunday and there was only a single person dealing with rebooking. So they waited in that queue from around 1055 to 1812 before they made it to the front of the queue and were seen to for rebooking. It was taking about 45/60 mins to deal with each person.

They did try calling BA and reaching out on social media but got nowhere whilst in the queue. BA have offered them £50 goodwill for the queue issue as they hadn’t offered them food or drinks etc and clearly queuing for 7+ hours is hard to defend. .


They did look at other flights options whilst in the queue and I had a quick look when I found out about it. However all the direct flights to LAS were sold out on BA and Virgin and there weren’t many options connecting anywhere that would have got them to LAS that day.

By that time the only option was to fly the next day. Even then it was to LAX with BA then onto LAS with B6.

corporate-wage-slave

This sounds like the T3 agent was trying to deal with an inexperienced agent in New Delhi to get people reticketed - that service response has been noted elsewhere. I think that would be another basis for claiming delay compensation, though not one which is backed by sharp evidence on the face of it, that BA were unable to rebook in a timely fashion. Due to changes in processes for rebooking, it can take a very long time to deal with cases, a decision BA has made for commercial reasons. Now ideally we would have a list of options available when they joined the queue, and I don't think we've got that, but still it may be worth adding that as an argument for CEDR to unpick.

testycal

A little (perhaps a little more than a little) off topic but the guiding principles may be relevant.

I am assisting Mrs. Testycal (as a married man community property governs so no offence should be taken by anyone to the reference which is meant in the most respectful manner possible), with a flight compensation claim with FlyDubai (I have posted my experience on Emirates but there is little or no activity).

If thread needs to be moved by moderators the thread is located here

FlyDubai thread I started

The issue. Her return flight from Zanzibar to Tel Aviv via Dubai was delayed more than 24 hours. FlyDubai agrees to compensation BASED ON the distance between Zanzibar and Tel Aviv and not via Dubai that would increase compensation not significantly.

The Israeli Aviation Law defines flight, final destination, stopovers, compensation, and distance and applies compensation for delayed flights.

Based on the English translation (Hebrew may be different), thoughts on the application of the compensation scheme and how it applies to this set of facts, understanding that the EC261 experience will only be a guide for consideration?











nothing of use here on flyertalk

Best practices / experiences for making claims based on Israel Aviation Services Law

corporate-wage-slave

EC261 has the same "Great Circle" methodology, it would be regarded as Zanzibar to Tel Aviv for distance, so would not take into account the Dubai swing.

testycal

Link to one relevant case great circle determination

Thank you for clarifying. Never been an issue on my usual routes as they are longhaul without backtracking.

Monium

Thought I’d share a positive story (also may be useful as a data point).

I was booked on BA84 YVR-LHR 20th December 2022. For a variety of reasons (various operational things), we were boarded, sat on the plane for about 10 hours, disembarked whilst still at YVR, then finally flown home the following day - so an overnight delay, arriving around 25hours after scheduled.

I put a claim in to BA for the relevant compensation, and also duty of care claim (I’d booked a hotel, had a meal, got a cab, etc).

I put the claim in on 31st Dec, and 7 days later had a response from BA confirming they’d be paying me both the delay compensation (£520) and my duty of care expenses in full (which were about £230). They’ve now arrived in my bank account.

I was very impressed with how quickly it was dealt with, particularly over the holiday period.