BA 269 Jan 17 disarms doors while taxiing - to avoid UK261?
 

Is that legal? FlightAware shows arrival time of 3:57 late. Crew clearly disarmed doors while still taxiing (for at least another two or three minutes). I've never seen this before in hundreds of flights and can only assume it was intended to subvert UK261. What's the best recourse for us here? Or is this normal/legal behavior?

I don’t image the captain or cabin crew ever even think about comp when carrying out their duties

It is doors open time that counts, so I am not sure how any of that would help in any case. It is clearly a very odd situation you describe.

Isn't the delay compensation payable after 3hours any way so it would still qualify.

Many thanks for the quick replies. The door open time was approximately 3 minutes after the 4 hour mark, so if that's the case then we should still be good for compensation. But FlightAware shows the arrival time as when the doors were disarmed (hence 3:57 late), not when they were opened - is there a good way to see the data filed with regulators?

Sorry, how would flight aware know when doors are disarmed? Did you actually see this happen?

BA will record when the doors open but AFAIK it is internal. File a UK261 claim and let them use that to determine 3 or 4 hour cutoff.

And indeed it's doors open AND passengers in a position to leave (details in the main EC261 thread). So for an arrival in the USA, with the jet bridge issues, the customs and manifest paperwork exchange, clarification of "extras" and assistance, I wouild be certain you would be over 4 hours. If you think about arriving at a bus disembarkation location such as the Greek Islands then opening the doors is in itself not when the clock stops, the buses need to be in place and the dispatcher has given the green light to start disembarkation. Admittedly this is usually pretty slick at these locations. On shorthaul and JFK T7 the disarm routinely happens in the final roll, so I would say this is all a bit misplaced.

Yes, heard the announcement from the flight deck and then saw it happen (or more precisely, saw the FAs respond and proceed to the doors, I couldn't see the doors themselves from my seat). We were in the first middle row of F (row 2). I don't know where FlightAware gets its data but I was watching closely at the time and it showed us as arrived for 5 minutes while we were still waiting for the doors to actually open to disembark.
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From expertflyer

Thanks for this. Yes, that's what flightAware shows (2302), but that arrival time was when we were still taxiing, and when the doors were disarmed.

Apart from the door issue, any idea what is happening with BA269 lately? Shows massive delays since early January, even one cancellation. Seems not to be a late inbound aircraft as the A380 sits on the ground from the morning. Any clues?

I always tried to avoid the late return flight: two-six-late...

To be fair the FR24 track shows the aircraft arriving on to the stand at 2302 local time, there certainly doesn't seem to be several further minutes of taxi-ing after that point.

https://www.flightradar24.com/data/f...ba269#2ee2657b

I'm not sure where this data comes from, but I am very certain of the timeline here because I was closely monitoring the time and flightAware. This was what first tipped me off that the door disarm time might be relevant; I've never seen doors disarmed while taxiing so that was strange in itself but the flightAware arrival record was what caused me to suspect the disarming was somehow linked to the arrival records.

Actual time of arrival on stand 07.02, first customer door opened 07.07.