Ba delayed flight, lost holiday time

jpsartre

Walter4 wrote: »

I had a similar question about BA procedure on this. I originally tried to claim compensation for a cancellation (flight was delayed and then ultimately the destination airport was changed, although we flew under the same flight number).

When I made my claim on line, BA even classified it as a cancellation, but denied compensation as they stated that it was cancelled due to extraordinary circumstances (being the weather at LCY).

I replied, pointing out that every other carrier left timely from LCY at the same timeframe) and thus were not extraordinary circumstances. It was pretty clear that the evidence didn't support their original contention.

Then BA replied, but now changed their tune, calling it a delay not a cancellation any longer. And so accordingly, they were not paying out as they disagreed with Sturgeon's exception.

I replied that it was a cancellation, we were rerouted to a different airport, and BA even classified it as a cancellation, so that the controversy about Sturgeon did not apply here. But after many weeks, I have not received a reply.

Do you have any suggestions?

Thanks!

Even if you were rerouted to a different airport I don't see how it could count as a cancelation when you flew on the same flightnumber. I take it BA ensured you were transported to your destination or at least reimbursed you if you paid for this yourself?

Walter4

jpsartre wrote: »

Even if you were rerouted to a different airport I don't see how it could count as a cancelation when you flew on the same flightnumber. I take it BA ensured you were transported to your destination or at least reimbursed you if you paid for this yourself?

1. Seems to me that if they originally called it a cancellation, that it is a bit late to reverse course just to suit them. They already conceded that it was a cancellation but denied the claim because of extraordinary circumstances. Then when they find that they can't hide behind extraordinary circumstances they completely change their tune to find another excuse?

2. I struggle to see how the flight number thing can be something to avoid calling it a cancellation. First, if it could, then conceivably an airline can avoid paying compensation as a cancellation just by porting a flight number. This seems to be just a semantic slight of hand and not really a substantive issue. Second, 261/2004 classifies a cancellation as the non-operation of a flight "as previously planned." Since it was planned to operate to LCY but instead was rerouted prior to departure to another airport, then this seems to meet that definition.

3. Article 7 does not limit compensation to cancellations but also to reroutings as defined by and referencing Article 8. Since Article 8 explicitly includes as a rerouting the situation where the flight departs for an airport other than the original destination airport but which is another airport in the region, then whether it is a cancellation or a "delay," I don't see why Sturgeon is even an issue. This is explicitly entitled for compensation per 261/2004, not by the extended logic of Sturgeon et al, but by the regs themselves.

But I can't even get a further response out of BA after I responded to their denial. So, that's what I was looking for assistance with.

jpsartre

My guess is that somebody at BA were too quick when they told you the flight had been cancelled. Your flight operated as far as I can tell but was diverted to another airport (I take it another London airport?). There can be different reasons for this, for instance weather or air traffic restrictions.

You're misreading article 7. Aside from the fact that it does not apply to cases of delays, the mention of rerouting refers to passengers being put on alternative flights to make their final destination, not passengers being diverted to another airport.

Walter4

jpsartre wrote: »

My guess is that somebody at BA were too quick when they told you the flight had been cancelled. Your flight operated as far as I can tell but was diverted to another airport (I take it another London airport?). There can be different reasons for this, for instance weather or air traffic restrictions.

You're misreading article 7. Aside from the fact that it does not apply to cases of delays, the mention of rerouting refers to passengers being put on alternative flights to make their final destination, not passengers being diverted to another airport.

Thanks for your reply, but I feel I must disagree with you.

The initial classification was not done by phone or email, but the online form. So someone must have inputted the data as a cancellation, but one not eligible due to extraordinary circumstances. It seems that it can't be just a mistaken misclassification, because the person inputting the information online didn't just call it cancelled, but went to the further step of determining it to be a cancellation that was not eligible due to extraordinary circumstances. So they actually thought about the cancellation and then determined a reason for why it wasn't eligible.

If a flight is diverted midair, that is one thing. But to change the arrival airport (from LCY to STN) before departure seems to quite clearly meet the definition of a flight that did not operate "as previously planned" which is the definition of cancellation in 261/2004. The flight to LCY as originally planned did not operated. Rather it was swapped with a seperate flight to STN.

Where does Article 7/8 state that reroutings are not eligible? Article 7 explicitily references the exact rerouting as what occurred, a rerouting to another airport in the region from the original destination airport. If the flight was re-routed than it couldn't have been just delayed, but by definition has to have been cancelled. And Article 7 which details compensation references these reroutings for determining the amount of compensation. If I'm misreading the code, could you please lend me your alternative view and how you arrive at that?

Walter4

Centipede100 wrote: »

Was informed before take-off that we were rerouted to STN. We were actually given no choice. When we arrived at the gate after finally being given a departure gate, the monitors changed the destination airport from LCY to STN.

Details:
BA8482 on 8 Jul 12.
Originally from FAO-LCY, but ultimately changed to FAO-STN

Thanks for your suggestions to this. I agree that this may be ultimately moot, but I don't think the whole Sturgeon issue should even apply here (I have a different and much more clear-cut post 3hr delay with another carrier that I know I will need to await final resolution of Sturgeon for), but I don't think this should even go to that level.

I fully plan on fighting this as far as necessary (obviously would prefer a swift resolution) and will just seek all costs that BA makes me incur by fighting them.

But I'm surprised by the lack of response from BA and was looking for help in exhausting all avenues with respect to them directly, before pursuing action through regulatory and legal means.

jpsartre

Walter4 wrote: »

Where does Article 7/8 state that reroutings are not eligible? Article 7 explicitily references the exact rerouting as what occurred, a rerouting to another airport in the region from the original destination airport. If the flight was re-routed than it couldn't have been just delayed, but by definition has to have been cancelled. And Article 7 which details compensation references these reroutings for determining the amount of compensation. If I'm misreading the code, could you please lend me your alternative view and how you arrive at that?

Rerouted passengers may be entitled to compensation according to article 7, however, BA is effectively denying you were rerouted. Rather, you were diverted in which case article 7 doesn't apply anyway. Technically, rerouting = passenger's flight is cancelled and he is transferred to another flight. Diversion = passenger's flight operates but to a different airport than originally planned. The latter may result in a delay (as it did in your case) and the usual rights apply with respect to these. None involve compensation however (at least not yet).

I don't understand how you can say that your flight to LCY was swapped for a *different* flight to STN. Aside from the fact that BA have no scheduled flights to STN, the flight had the same flight number and presumably carried all the passengers booked on the LCY flight. While there are no doubt grey-areas, I don't see how this is one of them. It's a straightforward diversion, not a cancellation as far as I can tell. Nothing odd about it being announced prior to departure either. It's unfortunate that BA originally misclassified it as a cancellation and if you want to press them on this, go ahead. But IMO you are then seeking compensation on the basis of a technicality, not because your situation actually entitles you to it.

Walter4

jpsartre wrote: »

Rerouted passengers may be entitled to compensation according to article 7, however, BA is effectively denying you were rerouted. Rather, you were diverted in which case article 7 doesn't apply anyway. Technically, rerouting = passenger's flight is cancelled and he is transferred to another flight. Diversion = passenger's flight operates but to a different airport than originally planned. The latter may result in a delay (as it did in your case) and the usual rights apply with respect to these. None involve compensation however (at least not yet).

I don't understand how you can say that your flight to LCY was swapped for a *different* flight to STN. Aside from the fact that BA have no scheduled flights to STN, the flight had the same flight number and presumably carried all the passengers booked on the LCY flight. While there are no doubt grey-areas, I don't see how this is one of them. It's a straightforward diversion, not a cancellation as far as I can tell. Nothing odd about it being announced prior to departure either. It's unfortunate that BA originally misclassified it as a cancellation and if you want to press them on this, go ahead. But IMO you are then seeking compensation on the basis of a technicality, not because your situation actually entitles you to it.

I really appreciate your providing me with your view.

1. BA never opposed my claim that I was rerouted. They initially classified it as a cancellation and then as a delay. They never replied to my later point that it was a rerouting as well as a cancellation.

2. The airlines may distinguish between a "diversion" and a "rerouting" but I see no where in the code where that is distinguished as different situations, or that such a distinction has a different meaning. Further, Article 8 Sec 3 references the situation of a re-routing where the town, city or region is served by several airports...[and] an air carrier offers a "flight to an airport alternative to that for which the booking was made." That is the exact situation here. And Article 7 references such re-routing "pursuant to Article 8." So I fail to see how that would not involve compensation.

3. The definition of cancellation in the code is the non-operation of the flight "as previously planned." Since it was not planned to go to STN, but instead was previously planned to go to LCY, then how does the operation of the flight to a different airport than originally scheduled not meet the definition of non-operation "as previously planned"? The incoming flight was delayed for about 4 hrs, but this was not as a result of extraordinary circumstances. Because of its late arrival at FAO, they had to reroute the flight to STN before we ever took off, because we would not have made the curfew into LCY. But since the curfew was only an issue due to the nonextraordinary late arrival of the incoming flight, the flight rerouting was not extraordinary but rather a knock on effect of the incoming plane.

I'm still failing to see how this is not even clear-cut much less grey area. It seems quite clearly to meet the definition of cancellation, and further also that of a rerouting.

Walter4

Centipede100 wrote: »

Walter4's flight has clearly been cancelled according to the definition of cancellation in Article 2(l) of 261/2004:

(l) "cancellation" means the non-operation of a flight which was previously planned and on which at least one place was reserved

Flight BA8482 was scheduled to fly between FAO and LCY. It was cancelled and replaced by another flight with the same flight number which flew from FAO to STN. We know this because archive records state that the flight schedule was altered prior to take off from FAO by the airline.

I repeat that this is likely to be immaterial to the OP's claim in any case as the rescheduled/diverted flight landed at STN almost 3 hours after the scheduled arrival time at LCY, meaning that the OP was delayed in excess of 3 hours in reaching his final destination.

If the OP wants to take the battle to the airline, then he should concentrate his efforts on finding out the background to the cancellation by comparing various sources if the reason given is weather.

Centipede, thanks for the response and info. Do you think the weather records are really necessary given the departure/arrival times of other carriers?

There were four other flights operated by other carriers out of LCY between the original time of departure for our incoming plane to FAO, and the actual departure time. All four flights departed on time or within 26 min of the originally scheduled departure time.

It seems that any issue was BA related and not an extraordinary weather related issue.

The big problem I am having is that BA won't even respond to my follow up messages and this has been going on for weeks.

I was reimbursed for my separate costs promptly, and BA separated my reimbursement claim from my comp claim. Even the customer rep dealing who handled my reimbursement claim stated that they did not understand why I had not received a reply yet.

jpsartre

Walter4 wrote: »

2. The airlines may distinguish between a "diversion" and a "rerouting" but I see no where in the code where that is distinguished as different situations, or that such a distinction has a different meaning. Further, Article 8 Sec 3 references the situation of a re-routing where the town, city or region is served by several airports...[and] an air carrier offers a "flight to an airport alternative to that for which the booking was made." That is the exact situation here. And Article 7 references such re-routing "pursuant to Article 8." So I fail to see how that would not involve compensation.

Because compensation is only due if your flight was cancelled. That is what BA is (now) denying. Even if we agree that what happened to you was a rerouting, it doesn't establish the crucial issue of contention, namely that your flight was cancelled. What rerouting means in article 8 is irrelevant as far as compensation is oncerned since that article does not deal with compensation.

Walter4 wrote: »

3. The definition of cancellation in the code is the non-operation of the flight "as previously planned."

Not quite. It is the non-operation of a flight that was previously planned, as opposed to the operation of a flight in a manner not previously planned. In other words, a flight does not count as cancelled simply because it operates in a manner that wasn't planned (for instance by flying to a different airport), it has to not operate at all. The flight to LCY was planned and did, IMO, operate, just to a different airport.

Walter4 wrote: »

I really appreciate your providing me with your view.

No problem, and thanks for not taking it personally just because we disagree

Walter4

Centipede100 wrote: »

I agree with your train of thought but if you are going to take this all the way, no matter that the burden of proof is on the airline, you will need to counter their assertions in any way you can so weather records together with flight operation timings are critical, (been there, done that, t shirt obtained).

You are wasting time continuing to contact them if they won't respond. Either write the letter as suggested above putting them on notice of legal action once Sturgeon is resolved and wait for the judgement, then you have an either/or action of delay or cancellation. Then all that needs to be resolved is both whether it was extraordinary circumstances and what other measures the airline could have put in place to avoid the delay/cancellation, the first being the most relevant in your case.

Ok, good point. I guess I was arguing by extension that if other airlines could operate timely then BA by default could not have been pursuing all reasonable measures to avoid the so-called extraordinary circumstances. Do you have a good resource or two your would recommend on the weather?

I was hoping to avoid the whole Sturgeon thing, as it seemed like a moot argument. And also, was hoping to be able to resolve this directly, as the departure airport is FAO, so I'd have to pursue my claim through the Portuguese regulator.

But perhaps waiting one more month would take away the last leg they think they can stand on. I'm just surprised that I haven't even gotten a response from BA on this one, and I thought I had to exhaust my efforts with the airlines first. So I wanted to see how long I should keep up my dance with BA.