Coakers

Hi all,

I wanted to check with this community of experts whether you believe that BA have operated within their responsibilities regarding my flight cancellation from Manchester yesterday (12th June).

• I was booked on the BA1407 (MAN - LHR) in Club Europe
• Flight was cancelled c90 mins prior to departure due to inbound aircraft (BA1402) being caught up in the weather challenges at Heathrow
• Upon cancellation, phoned BAEC and was rebooked onto BA1383 today (19th)
• Ground agents at MAN advised that they were not able to provide hotel accommodation for the night as compensation was being rebooked on a flight (which would get me to LHR 12 hours original ETA)
• Phoned BAEC as from the website, under Duty of Care, it is not a dependency not to be Force Majure (as it is for EU261 compensation) to try and get approval for hotel stay in Manchester.
• Whilst on the phone to BAEC my flight was cancelled (seen on the App) and then advised that no hotel was to be offered.
• Options were a through the night train to Heathrow or train in the morning (as all BA flights fully booked) - with the morning getting me to LHR after I needed to be here for a conference
• I used google flights and there was availability on a Brussels Airlines flight from MAN-BRU-LHR this morning - but BAEC said they only had access to OW flights and speak to Ground staff and Ground Staff said they also only had access to OW flight.
• End Result - have driven to LHR and will work out the rest later

I appreciate the challenges that are commonly reported with BA Short Haul currently, but my reading of the regs is that BA should have provided me a hotel and also been able to book me onto the Brussels Airlines flight. I have now incurred extra costs in driving down, as well as losing my parking at MAN and now having to pay for it in and around London.
Is this a valid position to take with BA or have I misinterpreted how my situation should have been treated?

Thanks
Chris

KARFA

Absolute garbage. Duty of care stands separately to your options of rebook/re-route/refund.

Again rubbish. Compensation does depend on the reason for cancellation, duty of care always applies regardless of reason. No one would think it is unreasonable to have a hotel overnight in those circumstances.

In any case, you can book your own hotel and claim the cost back from BA - often this may be an easier option rather than waiting in a queue for a voucher with over a hundred others.

In terms of rebooking on to BA1383 today, that was also cancelled anyway. Now tbh BA can book you on Avanti, and to me that would have been the sensible option under the circumstances rather than trying for something on SN/KL/LH etc.

What have you done so far? Did you cancel the booking in the end or just leave it? Did you book a hotel last night?

DYKWIA

Unfortunately, there's not much you can do now.

You should have just booked the hotel and Brussels Airline flight yourself, and then claimed that back from BA.

It's astonishing to me that BA continue to get away with lying to their customers regarding duty of care / compensation etc. Is it due to lack of training, or they actually trained to deny?

Sigwx

In future when FT-ers who have a reasonably good working grasp of 261 ins and outs come across this, calmly refer said staffer to their copy of BA’s Customer Service Procedures Manual and ask them to clarify. The fact that they have this information available to them would tend to indicate that the last half of your final sentence may well be accurate.

As for the OP’s original flight, it was indeed a Wx cancellation, but duty of care and rebooking both do still apply.

corporate-wage-slave

Next time: ring up to get rebooked - normally the App does a good job on the Disruption Menu but I suspect it didn't work yesterday for other reasons. For anything relating to EC261 and Right to Care, use this forum. No point discussing with Contact Centre staff, they have very limited training on the issue (if any at all in the case of Capita). So just keep in mind the EC261 thread, which has had a lot of work put into it and comes up first on Google now; and this thread for disruption decision making / hotels etc:
Disruption Assistance thread - signposts and what you need to know

salut0

Just a note to thank the knowledgeable, diligent and generous posters (on this thread, corporate-wage-slave, KARFA, Sigwx) who have contributed so much solid information to the EC261 discussion. I continue to learn important pieces of information almost every time I read a thread about a disruption. This is what makes Flyertalk such a fantastic community and an invaluable resource.