Disco Volante

You should consider making a complaint of maladministration - this really is disgraceful. Or threaten to seek judicial review if you have sufficient legal knowledge.

In fact, I have wondered whether this is deliberate. The UK system involves making a complaint to the AUC, which may then be passed to the CAA for enforcement action if necessary. The enforcement route is through the magistrates' courts. However, as the lawyers on the board will know, proceedings in the magistrates court can only be brought within 6 months of the date of the offence. If the AUC take too long considering the complaint, or if the airline spins out the negotiation stage with the CAA, then no enforcement action in the magistrates' courts can be brought. I suspect the airlines know this, which may answer the question why there have been no prosecutions of an airline. But the AUC must know this - so to delay investigations beyond the time in which enforcement action must be taken is so unreasonable that no reasonable body given this task would act in this way.

heartybob

Strictly speaking, prosecution is the means of imposing a penalty for contravention whereas enforcement is the means of ensuring compliance, but whatever the technicalities, the fact is that the division of responsibility for receiving complaints from responsibility for ensuring compliance / enforcement between the AUC and the CAA is certainly diluting the effectiveness of the system. Which may of course be the intention.

uk1

This is quite a problem. As you know the AUC is fully funded by the CAA and is supposed to assist the CAA in discharging it's responsibilities. In situations like this the AUC seems merely to cause a perfectly avoidable delay, which for the reasons described (Disco Volante) actually prevent the CAA from doing it's job in a timely way.

It's supposed to:
The penny must have dropped at the AUC and CAA that BA and others are not discharging their responsibilities under 261/2004 but clearly have chosen not to do anything.

And as the in-built delay seems to be used to assist them in preventing it from carrying out it's duties I suspect that the correct approach is to ask for a complaint to be made to the Minister of State (Ruth Kelly) via an MP. She is currently carrying out a review of the CAA and this could be the perfect moment to help get a new organisation that will actually do it's job. She appointed Sir Joseph Pilling and he has said:
Now is clearly the best of times for some pressure.

NickB

If anybody wants to pile on the pressure, it would make sense to also raise the issue with the EU Commission, as they seem to be the only body with a modicum of interest in the enforcement of the Reg.
As far as UK implementation is concerned, the DfT was very clear at the time of adoption of the implementing Uk regulations that the government, while recognising that they were under a duty under the Regulation to adopt sanctions which were "effective, proportionate and dissuasive", nonetheless was resolved "to apply the enforcement Regulations with a light touch."

I would not personally expect much action being taken spontaneously by the government or the CAA unless the EU Commission turns the pressure, if need be by threatening to take the UK to Court for non-compliance with its enforcement obligations under the EU Regulation.

Alvador

The wording of the Regulation here suggests that it may be best to refuse benefits or compensation or assistance offered in a third country if they fall short of those specified in the EU Regulation.

But is it really likely that a court would regard someone who accepted a seat on a later flight after their flight was cancelled as having received such benefits, compensation or assistance in the third country as to prevent the EU Regulation applying?

uk1

I agree ... and clearly what is happening, which we could easilly discover under FOI is that they are in fact adopting "no touch" rather than "light touch" which means that they are failing to discharge it's responsibilities. Under FOI we could simply ask the questions:

1. How many complaints has the AUC/CAA received where it is clear that BA has failed to disclose compensation entitlements to passengers or made suitable arragements for passengers when cancelling a flight in contravention of 261/2004?

2. What investigations has AUC/CAA taken to discover with BA how these non-compliances have taken place and how widespread they are?

3. What warnings have AUC/CAA given to BA to comply in the future or sanctions taken.

The answer to these disclosures will clearly illustrate a complete lack of any activity.

mjack99

I didn't see this in this thread so thought I would add it (just to get practical for a moment). If you do a search on the BA web site for flight delays and flight cancellations you get their polocies and how to claim compensation.

Today my flight was cancelled twice and then the third flight was delayed (all in all a 4.5 hour delay). BA were very vague about why the flights were cancelled and after reading this thread I now understand why.

Will let you know how my compensation claim goes.

wyvern

If you pursue your complaint you will probably get lucky - either what you are due under EU regs or maybe even a bit more if you complain in the right way.

However it is clear from these posts that BA (and many other airlines) are clearly failing to provide the information and assistance required under the regulations and the regulatory oversight of this is clearly lacking.

Good luck!

mjack99

Wyvern, what do you mean complain in the right way?

I am wondering if this thread shouldn't be a sticky somewhere nicely summarized of course with all the practical details.

Frequentflyer99

A colleague and wife (both Blue and with really no status of any sort) on an MFU to NCW, had their evening flight out of JFK cancelled and were put on the next morning's flight.

They were offered nothing ....

With a little tutoring and only a couple of e-mails (highlighting the deficincies in BA's failure to honour the EU obligations), he scored the full EU compensation by cheque within a week for both of them, and about 6 weeks later he got all the NY out of pocket expenses (including a night at the Ritz Carlton) and 50k miles.

I think that is a pretty reasonable deal in all the circumstances.

mjack99

Just tried to claim online and was told the flight was not eligible. The gold line people told me I would have to write to the EU Compensation Claims department.

They did say they would look at compensation with miles as well.

FrequentFlyer99, any chance you could put a bit of tutoring this way in a nice succinct posting?

Frequentflyer99

I'm afraid that life is too short to do this too often However its all in the early posts in this thread ...

What were your flights, how long was the delay and on what basis was it said not to be eligible ?

mad_rich

If they're claiming extraordinary circumstances which could not have been avoided even if all reasonable measures had been taken, remember that the onus is on the airline to show that these circumstances existed, not on you to prove that they didn't.

A simple letter asking the precise details of the problem (dates and times), how frequent such problems tend to be, what they deem to be reasonable measures that could be taken to prevent such problems, what measures they actually took, when etc. should prove a suitably onerous task.

The AUC website, toothless as they may be, has a useful guide to the regulations. You can check that you are indeed eligible for compensation, and feel confident in your arguments with BA.

Petrus

Even before The Regulation was in place AF assisted PAX.
Back in august of 2000 I was on AF from CDG to LHR and AF cancelled a bunch of flights including mine. As I approached check in I was more or less handed a boarding card for the next flight to London which happened to be on BA. Take note and learn BA.

Ironically, the BA flight got delayed by three hours... The joys if being stuck in CDG satellite.

mjack99

BA just gave me 10,000 points for the 5 hour delay but I am still going for the regulation 250. Just got to find time to write that letter now.