cameramaker

Sat at PMI now. Flight to MAD is delayed leaving ~20 min between arrival of my IB flight and scheduled connection of my BA flight back to LHR.

Is it very risky to ask to be offloaded and book a FR/LS flight direct back to LON tonight or do I need to stick with it and get delayed overnight in MAD in order to retain protection under EU261?

Tobias-UK

You are only entitled to rebooking if your flight is cancelled or delayed by more than 5 hours. Contact BA and ask them if you can be rerouted. I suspect they will not want to do this until you misconnect.

sammyg901

Usually the BA system only reroutes you once your first flight takes off in my experience. Not sure if you can find someone to reroute you and then immediately exercise your right to abandon ?!

Tobias-UK

To what end?

sammyg901

If the OP doesn't board PMI-MAD he'll be marked as a no show and forfeit the ticket. If he were rebooked MAD-LHR to tomorrow he can then say he's entitled to reimbursment under EU261 regs?

Tafflyer

You could well find yourself with an apron car transfer from aircraft to aircraft at MAD if you're lucky. I had this once before, and it's the best.

Tobias-UK

Ah, I see what you mean. I think that would be legally risky, the airline would argue it met its EC261 obligation by agreeing to reroute and any further change was voluntary and subject to fare rules.

sammyg901

Yes. I had another look and actually the regs don't seem to specifically allow for a refund in this scenario. Only that you need to be rerouted and compensated for your arrival delay.

OP, do update us! It was a shame PMI-LGW is cancelled so PMI-LHR was absolutely packed

cameramaker

Thanks all for the replies.

We were originally booked on the PMI-LGW and notified of the cancellation on Friday night. There�s been several cancellations of the Gatwick flight so absolutely nothing available on a direct flight to London airports.

Rebooked on to IB3925 PMI-MAD and then BA465 tonight. Upon landing in MAD we had already been auto rebooked on to another flight tomorrow morning when refreshing the BA app. Captain advised the aircraft went tech in MAD prior to the MAD-PMI flight. �The technicians decided they needed to change the wing� apparently which was incredibly impressive that they managed this with just over a 1 hour delay!!!

Priority baggage assistance in MAD enabled us to skip the lengthy economy queue and the bags were retrieved in 20 minutes as promised.

I assume I can claim 1x�220 for the flight cancellation from BA (booked one way PMI-LGW, so not sure if its EU or UK261 which applies?) and then another 1x�250 from Iberia for the flight delay?

Fortunate that similar has happened to me a few times and I know what to do in IRROPS as haven�t even had an email or anything from BA to advise me of my rights, flight rebooking, assistance etc. Original customer service from BA these days.

marconess

I can't imagine you would have gotten much help in Palma to be completely honest, I know the ordeal is over now, but cant see it in Palma.

jeremyBA

I am in mallorca now and here a lot.

In the rare case of issues I have booked with another airline.

Given the demise of monarch and Norwegian sadly the route is now only ba or easyJet and flights home at the end of august are typically very full and very expensive.

we dodged a bullet last year with easyJet. There was a 10:00 and a 10:30 home. The 10:00 was cancelled at about an hours notice. We were on the 10:30. Checking in case ours went the same way there were no flights for 5 days which was also gcse time ( may half term ). Even indirect the next possible flights was the following evening. The system does not have much slack any more.

craigthemif

Unfortunately you need to accept the misconnect (and 5+ hour delay) if you want the EU261 compensation.

However it may sometimes be possible to get a refund on the original ticket if you decide to make your own alternative arrangements.

Tobias-UK

Correct. These are 2 separate claims, IB being responsible for your ‘duty of care’ expenses for the delay.

stifle

I'm not sure how that would work on a PMI-MAD-LHR trip with the need to be stamped out of Spain at MAD.

crazy8534

This reminded me, the last time I ever checked a bag (and it got lost) was in MAD, and a German gentleman threatened to punch me in the face for using the priority baggage assistance queue and skipping a line of about 15 extremely unhappy people!
Tensions were high, let's just say....