Hi everyone, hoping for some advice because we’re honestly a bit stuck and getting quite desperate.



My partner booked a flight from Boston to Málaga months ago to visit for Easter through the British Airways website as an Executive Club member. She chose a flight operated by Iberia, Boston to Madrid, with about a one hour connection and then a short internal flight to Málaga, arriving at 8am on Friday morning.



A few days ago Iberia sent her a cancellation email saying that flight had been cancelled. Shortly afterwards she received an email from BA saying she had been rebooked onto a flight from Boston to Málaga via Heathrow.



The problem is that the new flight leaves Boston at roughly the same time but instead of arriving at 8am on Friday morning she now arrives somewhere between 7 and 8pm on Friday evening, so almost 11 hours later. On top of that she now has to sit in Heathrow for about 9˝ hours.



This creates a real problem because it means she now has to miss a full day at work at the last minute and ask for a day off, which is going to be very problematic.



What’s also frustrating is that BA didn’t offer any alternatives at all. There were just the emails saying the flight had been changed. The link in the email errors out and the BA website throws an error every time you try to manage the booking.



She finally called BA and the agent treated it like a voluntary change and said if she wanted a better option she would have to pay a minimum of $2,000.



The thing is that there are very few connections that Thursday, so we do understand options are limited. Because of that she asked if they could simply move her onto the same schedule as the original flight but one day earlier, leaving Wednesday evening and arriving Thursday morning at 8am. That would solve the problem for us because we could rearrange things on our side.



But BA is refusing to do this unless we pay the fare difference.



The irony is that if you look at the outbound flight by itself it’s actually quite cheap right now. We can’t cancel and rebook the whole trip because her return is Easter Sunday, which is extremely expensive, and that’s exactly why we booked months ago.



What I don’t understand is that in the past when BA has cancelled flights for me, the system always asks you to accept the new booking and if you don’t accept it you’re given alternative options. I’ve also always been able to move a day earlier or a day later when the connection didn’t work. In this case none of that happened.



At the moment the BA agent we spoke to either doesn’t understand the situation or simply refuses to look into it.



Please, there seem to be people here who really understand the rules and regulations around this. What should we actually be quoting when we talk to BA again?



We phoned the call centre over the weekend and we’re going to try again on Monday morning in the hope of getting somebody more competent, because at this point I honestly think the agent we spoke to was either malicious or incompetent.



Time is running out because the flight is scheduled for this coming week and we’re getting desperate.



Any guidance would be hugely appreciated.



And finally, if BA just refuses to sort this out, what do we do then? To be honest, this day is incredibly valuable to us and this isn’t really about compensation. No small amount of compensation is going to make up for losing the day, losing a day at work, and all the trouble this is causing.



But regardless of that, what is the minimum we should expect from BA here under the EU rules and regulations, given that I do not consider this to be a reasonable alternative?

Since this is a journey from the US to Spain, which does not involve any flights operated by a UK airline, it falls under EU261 rather than UK261. Still, the rights your partner has are essentially the same. One important note is that legally speaking, the rights are against IB who are the operating airline. BA are merely acting as IB's agents in this situation.

A flight cancellation triggers Article 5 of EU261, which in turn gives passengers the right to choose between one of the following 3 options under Article 8:
Your partner would therefore be entitled to choose to get a refund just for the outward journey, if that suits her best. She is not obliged to get a refund for the entire journey just because she chooses to refund the outward part - note "for the part or parts of the journey not made" above.

BA's rerouting offer under b) should have included the earliest available alternative flights. If flights are particularly busy it's possible that they have done so, but it doesn't sound like they have tried particularly hard. A short hop from Boston to New York would unlock a lot more options, for example. If your partner can identify same-day flights with availability that BA haven't offered, she should insist on BA rebooking her onto them.

Finally under c) your partner has the option to be rebooked at an alternative date of her convenience. As you say, BA's internal guidelines do envisage this (see here) so there is no clear reason why an agent would suggest that this is a payable voluntary change. There is no requirement for the original fare class to be available for such a change.

Regardless of which option your partner chooses, she is likely to be entitled to €600 in compensation since her flight was cancelled with less than 14 days' notice and she was not offered re-routing arriving <4 hours later. This compensation would be payable by IB as the operating airline.

Unfortunately, the fact that she booked with BA, whilst the flights are operated by IB, makes this a more complex situation to solve than if she had booked directly with IB. She will ultimately need to pursue IB if BA refuse to honour her rights under EU261. Now IB are not exactly known for handling EU261 claims well either, but it's important to direct claims the right way to begin with.

​​​​​​​There is the option to escalate to AESA (the Spanish equivalent of the CAA/FAA) if IB reject the claim incorrectly, or after 1 month in any case. Ultimately it might need to go to court, though I cannot say which country would have jurisdiction since that depends on many factors including residency.

Does duty of care extend to the cost of obtaining a eta/visa/e-visa where there is a misconnect in a 3rd party country which requires you pay an immigration fee to enter and avail yourself of overnight accommodation which BA have advised you to arrange?

The specifics are - flight Lusaka LUN - Nairobi NBO - London LHR, single BA ticket, both flights BA marketed although the LUN-NBO flight is Kenya Airways operated. If all had gone to plan the connection would have been airside at NBO so no Kenya ETA required.

The late operation of the LUN -NBO flight resulted in a missed connection to the BA service to LHR. Rebooked onto the next available service which was the following day. BA indicated I should book a overnight hotel at NBO myself and seek reimbursement. NBO has no airside transit hotel so only option is to enter Kenya which requires at expedited transit ETA fee. This fee is directly incurred due to the missed connection and is the only way to obtain overnight accommodation.

I will add the transit visa cost to my claim to BA and see what they say but wondered if anyone had previous success or failure with claiming this sort of cost.

The phrase 'duty of care' isn't completely accurate, it is a duty to provide accommodation, food/drink, transport to/from accommodation and communications. Those are the items explicitly included in the legislation and a visa doesn't fall under any of them so I would doubt it would be legally claimable under UK261. BA may pay anyway but that would be as a matter of customer service more than anything else.

The alternative would be to bring a claim against KQ under Article 19 of the Montreal Convention for damage caused through delays. The argument would be that their delay directly led to you having to pay for a visa. It's an argument I am sympathetic to although I cannot comment on how it would fare in Court if it came to it.

The difference between an Article 19 and UK261 claim is that the UK/EU261 'duty of care' applies regardless of the circumstances. By contrast, airlines have a defence to an Article 19 claim if "it and its servants and agents took all measures that could reasonably be required to avoid the damage or that it was impossible for it or them to take such measures." In other words, if the delay was outside of their control (e.g. weather related) then they would not be liable.

My case succesfully ended with an overall great outcome for me

So:

Ł176 was the refund from my BAH flight.
Ł1100 my flight with EK from DXB to ATH and then another 4750 avios & Ł86 for my ATH to LHR.
Got back Ł1010 plus my 4750 avios.

In addition to that, nearly 1k for my extra accomodation and expenses in Dubai so i am really happy that everything was settled so quickly for me.Especially these during these diffult times with thousands of cases.

Now, i have another question. based on the above, do i have a case for ORC claim? (kind of greedy, i know..... but wanted to ask)

not with a refund. ORC works when you are rebooked, but if you get a full refund then no.

Thanks KARFA

Following up re the above in case anyone else finds themselves in the same situation.

Claimed for reimbursement of both the US$175 hotel cost plus the US$120 expedited transit ETA fee to see what BA would say. Reimbursement of accommodation and ETA fee approved in full within 24hrs of making the claim.

No idea whether BA felt they were obliged to reimburse for the ETA fee or whether it was simply a good will gesture but happy with the result.

Glad it worked for you, BA can often be more generous with expenses claims than they are strictly obliged to (similarly paying for taxis if you have missed the last train etc.).

Hey CWS, thanks for collating this information.

I found the following, which made me think that the first part of the answer I quoted above is incorrect: UK Court of Appeal confirms non-EU airlines are liable for delays caused by missed connections at airports outside the EU - Bird & Bird

Having said that - in your example, the final delay was caused by issues with the flight that took place wholly outside the UK+EU, while the court ruling pertained to a scenario where the issues were caused by a delay to the physical flight departing the UK. Also, the court case related to two flights with the same carrier, whereas yours involved two different carriers. So, I investigated further, and found this: Regulation (EC) No 261/2004 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 February 2004 establishing common rules on compensation and assistance to passengers in the event of denied boarding and of cancellation or long delay of flights, and repealing Regulation (EEC) No 295/91 (Text with EEA relevance)

"For the purposes of this Regulation a flight comprised of more than one leg shall be treated—

• (a) as a whole, if it was booked as a single unit, and
• (b) as departing from the point of departure of the first leg."

My understanding of this is that, in your first scenario, the passenger is eligible for compensation.


Unfortunately, the situation that led me to investigate this is analogous to your second scenario - a delay to the first leg (outside of the UK/EU) causing a missed connection to a UK-bound flight (on a UK carrier). While EC261 may be deemed to apply to the former scenario (because the first flight departed the UK, which means, I think, that it's not relevant who the operating carrier is), that doesn't answer the question of whether the operating airline in your second scenario is deemed to be the one operating the physical flight (QF) or the one operating the flight into the UK (BA).

Any thoughts would be welcome!

So further to my aircraft swap -> IDB -> delay claim, I got tired of the absolute runaround with BA support closing my tickets and giving me no update, I went to MCOL (they acted to unreasonable at every single stage, I did not think CEDR was reasonable).

After filing a defence at the last possible hour, they claimed I was in fact not denied boarding and voluntarily changed my booking. I suspected this would be their defence given that they provided no evidence about the IDB whatsoever.

I guess customers just love sitting at airports for 7 hours for no reason?

Should be a fairly slam dunk defence on my part right?

I have a taxi receipt getting us to the airport in plenty of time, I was travelling with an elderly person, I have a receipt showing a change fee of Ł0.00 which is not inline with what BA would normally charge, several receipts from outlets at the airport where we waited, and a taxi receipt for a taxi we had to take because we arrived so late. I also approached the desk a further 3-4 times before it closed asking to get us on it. Also my travel companion will submit a witness statement of facts.

On the balance of probabilities, the court would surely see this wasn't a voluntary charge.

I did also state on the phone what exactly what the desk agent told me, and about EU261 rebooking rights etc. Is there any point in trying to get the recording or a SAR at this stage?

There is certainly no harm in putting in an SAR. You can then use that down the line if the matter proceeds to a hearing.

Throwing excrement at the wall at the last minute is very much BA's modus operandi when it comes to dealing with UK261 civil claims they don't want to admit. I agree that the court is likely to see through it, though of course you can never be 100% sure.

There is a good chance it won't come to a hearing and that BA will fold on or just before the day of the hearing, especially if your case gets allocated to somewhere far away from their usual 'stomping ground' (i.e. Uxbridge).

Miss Scrutton Street was this morning denied boarding for her flight Gatwick - Geneva. Got to the airport in loads of time, but the flight was overbooked by two, and she drew one of the short straws. Credit to BA, they got her on a Swiss flight, and she ended up arriving an hour or so later.

Is she entitled to anything in this regard?

Of course. It was denied boarding under UK261. Compensation is Ł220 (but might reduced by 50% due to rebooked with minor delay?)

50% of Ł220 I believe due to being delayed under 2 hours. Does she have solid proof of IDB? They like to use every trick in the book to avoid paying out the full amount under UK261.

Customer services may offer a small good-will gesture at first.

And they may not pay the full amount until she takes them to court if they decide to dig in their heels.

Perhaps worth a customer service email first, not mentioning UK261, just the delay and inconvenience etc.