DominicB

I'm flying out of LAX tonight on BA280, meant to connect to BA1334 to NCL. We have about a 90 minute delay out of LAX, and it seems to me my chances of making the NCL flight are very slim. I live in York, and rather than wait for the next NCL flight, I would get home quicker if I had them check my bag just to LHR and I got to KX and got a train. As - almost certainly - the next NCL flight will put BA into EU261 territory, do you think I have a reasonable expectation of making them pay for the train ticket if I go down that path?

corporate-wage-slave

I imagine your bag will be checked through to NCL anyway, they aren't supposed to short check, but the missed connection may be part of this. Usually BA would work on the basis of rebooking you via the App, on to the next NCL service, as soon as your original connection became impossible, probably after departure, so check on the aircraft wifi. You can't expect BA to pay for the train ticket unless the delay to you really is very long, but what BA can do, if there is a long detay, is to rebook your ticket to NCL on LNER since there is a form of codeshare on that. You may then get a bit confused as to which station is needed for disembarkation. As you can see this is a lot easier if HBO.

DominicB

C-W-S, you are an ever-amazing mine of information. For US-based ground staff, is there a code for NCL by rail I might suggest to them? I can then leap off at York!

camdentown

I think you'll have to wait until you arrive at LHR for that.
If they can't retrieve your bags, they'll send them by courier to your home.

mjh0

Apparently Newcastle railway station is NCL, same as the airport is, but I can't see any BA-coded "flights" from QQK (Kings Cross IATA code) to NCL in Expertflyer (i.e. in the GDS) - but there is an LNER train every hour which carries an "AccessRail" code, so maybe that is accessible to them via that route?

My personal experience of this situation is that I have successfully made the case with the originating station for a short-check of a bag where a miss-connect will almost invariably result in a night-stop or other EU261 eligible delay. Sometimes the agent has just done it. The other times the agent has sought guidance from a more senior colleague, or called someone up (I'm assuming the FMU). But I've yet to be turned down in this circumstance.

Good luck getting things sorted.

corporate-wage-slave

I can't see it cutting any ice in LAX, not all agents in LHR will know of the Accessrail provision. In a way that's better (ie sorting it out in London) since once you are clear about arrival time then you can't be sure what the impact is for NCL flights / trains. And you'll be able to be accurate about that after the aircraft has pulled off stand in LAX. Note also that there is a tube strike tomorrow, and the Met Office are on strike as a random extra.

DominicB

Thank you, all!

Confus

If you find someone who can use the native res functionality, LNER trains show up under airline code 9B (for Access Rail), it appears as a pseudo flight. There’s no reason agents in the US can’t rebook onto these, other than that they may not be aware of what it is. If you tell them you do and are happy with the option, they should be able to do it, but equally it might just be easier to sort on arrival.

Theoretically tickets are only valid to the city described but it’s hard to see how you wouldn’t get away with getting off at York.

DominicB

And, in fact, I've been rebooked to MAN, which will get me home with a crisp but perfectly workable connection at LHR, and saves the hassle of getting to Kings Cross. If all now runs to the expected schedule I'm a happy bunny. The woman checking me in at LAX was one of the best BA staff I've met in person outside the UK - gave her a Gold Ticket (for what it might be worth)...

HogwartsExpress

If the first part of this is true, the second may well not be. I suspect any tickets you get via this route will have sufficient flexibility to allow stopping short, but if not you are likely to have trouble in York.

LBA_flyer

There are no ticket gates/barriers at York station, you don't need a ticket to enter or exit

Ldnn1

Surprising that such a major station doesn’t have them yet. There can’t be many of equivalent size without them still?

Wakefield for example has them, albeit they are often wide open.

Saying that, Piccadilly doesn’t but they’re pretty hot at stationing people at the platform gates.

Ryanardo_daVinci

Rail tickets permit you to leave any station on the route that the ticket is coded for, and as long as it is not an advance ticket (I.e. specified train only), permit you to leave and re-join on a later train.

LBA_flyer

It often gets mooted but for reasons unbeknown to me it hasn't happened yet, I think LNER & previous franchises have been pushing for them for some time.

corporate-wage-slave

I really don't know why I know this, but it's to do with the layout of the station and the footbridges and paths to the NRM and car parks, some of which were put in out of non railway funds. In order to put in barriers, in a listed building you would have to spend a lot of capex and then potentially staff / set up machinery in several points that it's just not worth the candle.