Flight delay and cancellation compensation, BA ONLY

Hi All, first post so hope it's in the right place etc. Some great reading btw.

We were due to fly back BA8486 from Majorca (PMI) to London City (LCY) on Tuesday 7th at 13:30. As we arrived with 3 young children at the airport to check-in, BA texted (!) to say they'd cancelled the flight. We went to the check-in desk who told us that earlier protests had closed City airport so they hadn't flown the outbound flight.

The airport was apparently open again so we said surely they could now get the plane to us and we'd only be an hour or so late? We were told that wouldn't happen and we'd have to rebook. There were no more BA flights that day to anywhere and none back to the UK with partner airlines. Staff at the check in desk gave us BA's telephone numbers and suggested we contact them. BA emailed, saying essentially the same thing. So we rang BA, who eventually picked up and said there was nothing they could do until the next afternoon when they had space for a family like ours on a flight to Heathrow. By then fellow passengers had looked into alternative carriers with little success (there was e.g. Thomas Cook flights at 4am the next morning but that seemed worse that the BA Heathrow option with young kids, even assuming BA would cover the cost). So we did what BA suggested, we flew back more than a day late to the wrong airport (still London to be fair, but we'd paid extra for City as it's local to us).

Questions:
1. Are we entitled to compensation? I have read Vauban's guide and my understanding of section 4.6 is yes - if it had wanted to, BA could have got that plane out to us (probably empty so at a loss to them, but it was a choice they had). I have typed initial details into bottonline and it also suggests yes, compensation of 250 euro each is due.
2. Are there relevant precedent cases on 'knock on', on the forum or elsewhere? I spent quite a while looking but I didn't find anything that clear cut?
3. If we do claim, should I initially try using BA's forms? It sounds as if BA in particular are more responsive to that then to a letter sent using the Resolver template?
4. If we do claim and BA then play hardball, I would probably look to employ Bott & Co further down the line. If that's the plan and the case isn't considered clear cut, would it be best to employ them now? Specifically, would you expect Bott & Co to fight harder if they've had the case from the start rather than from half way down the line?

Many thanks.

Hi can anyone help?

I flew from manchester to london then london to bangkok
my connection time was 1 hour but the flight from manchester was delayed 45 minutes, when i landed at heathrow they said over the speaker that my next flight to bangkok was ready to departure and I had missed it.

I had to go to BA desk and they rescheduled my flight with THAI air but wasnt for another 8 hours.

BA have refused my compensation, they said the following;

Your claim’s been refused because BAxxxx on 05 September was delayed because of airspace restrictions being in place that were outside of our control which prevented the aircraft operating as scheduled. Under EU legislation, I’m afraid we’re not liable for a compensation payment in this situation.


Any advice would be great

Also my luggage was delayed by a day

Thank you