Flight delay and cancellation compensation, BA ONLY

Computersaysno

Caz3121 wrote: »

there is no compensation for a 2 hour delay

Sorry I meant to say the two hour meant they missed their [booked together] connection ...so overnight stay in Heathrow meant they were approx. 15 hrs late home.

jpsartre

You can check recent flight times on Flightaware. It's not easy to think of non-extraordinary causes of an extended flight time to be honest.

JPears

Avoiding Pakistan/India, if normally on flight patch, involves a huge area so an alternative flight of similar duration duration just isn't going to be an option. Basic geography/geometry.....

sibay

Hello all.

Last Saturday we were 3 hours into our flight from Heathrow to Newark when there was an electrical fault on the plane (burning and smoke coming from under one of the seats) and the plane diverted to Iceland. The BA crew dealt with the issue very calmly and although frightening, we felt reassured and glad the flight was diverted.

When at Iceland, BA decided they could not continue with the flight and instead sent a "rescue" plane to fly us back to Heathrow. BA put us up in a hotel at Heathrow and booked us onto a flight to Newark on Sunday (24 hours later). They also provided us with food/drink vouchers.

I have claimed for flight delay compensation via Resolver and will await the reply. Here's where I have a couple of questions:

1) we traveled on BA World Traveler Plus, but that class of cabin was not available on the "rescue" flight back from Iceland to Heathrow so we were downgraded to World Traveler.

2) We missed a day/night in our hotel which we had paid for separately in advance. The hotel would not refund any money as it was a non-refundable advanced booking.

Is there a case for additional compensation for the above?

Thanks for any advice,

Caz3121

1) I cannot see anything for the downgrade on the rescue flight, they were taking you back so you could restart your journey
2) claim from travel insurance for consequential losses

PaulJenkins1971

Hi everyone. Hope someone can give me some advice on my case (sorry if it's a bit longwinded). A couple of years ago my wife and I were delayed when travelling from Phoenix to Prague through London Heathrow. Both flights were with British Airways. Our flight from Phoenix was delayed about 2,5 hours causing us to miss our connection to Prague (actually the flight to Prague had not departed and we only found out when our boarding passes wouldn't let us through flight connections). We had to queue at a British Airways desk. There was a later flight to Prague that night but it was fully booked so we had to spend the night in Heathrow and flew the next morning. My wife had checked at the time and there was a Ryanair flight from Stansted that night that we probably could have made but the British Airways agent said he could not change our ticket to a Ryanair flight. He said that if we were to book the ticket ourselves, we might be able to claim back the cost from British Airways. The problem was our bags had to be offloaded and the agent could not tell us how long it would take so even with a taxi to Stansted we could not be certain we would make the flight to Prague.



At the time, we didn't know about flight compensation but six months I sent a claim to British Airways. They have denied the claim citing extraordinary circumstances. Apparently there were strong winds in London that day which caused a delay to the flight to Phoenix (the weather in Phoenix was beatiful I might add). I haven't followed up on it since but the more I think about it, the more I wonder whether this is a valid excuse. It seems unfair that bad weather somewhere else should influence our right to compensation. I have checked the flight on Bott & Cos website and it says we could be due €600. Does this mean we are correct? The website also says:


"Bad weather must also affect the ‘flight in question’ in order for airlines to use it as a defence. If your flight was delayed because of the knock-on effects of a different flight being affected by bad weather, your flight should be claimable."


Any advice on how to proceed?

JPears

You are probably correct in your assumption although you can never be 100% sure in cases like this.
If you haven't already done so, download Vauban's superb guide for directions and all the information you need to proceed.
Your next steps are:
1. Write to BA again pointing out the weather affecting a different flight to yours is not considered an EC and that they should reconsider. Your letter should be marked as an NBA or LBA giving them however long you want for them to pay, but a minimum of 14 days.

1. Take your case to ADR. Easier than2, usually free. If not successful then progress to
2. Take them to small claims court. Or bypass the ADR and go straight to court.

jpsartre

PaulJenkins1971 wrote: »

I have checked the flight on Bott & Cos website and it says we could be due €600. Does this mean we are correct?

The problem with Bott's flight checker is that it's so poorly updated that a positive result means nothing. Check your flight on EUClaim.co.uk instead, it's more reliable. To be honest, I don't see a valid claim given the timelines you mention. Delays due to knock-on effects are notoriously grey area cases. The relevant question is whether the airline could have taken reasonable measures to avoid your delay and for such a short delay (less than 3 hours), that seems unlikely. Aside from the options JPears mentions, you can hand it over to Bott. They'll take a cut should you be awarded compensation although I'd be surprised if they don't drop the case before it gets to that.

Justice13075

Botts flight checker means nothing but if you want you can hand it over to them great logic in that reply.

jpsartre

What's the logical flaw that you see in that? The quality of Bott's flight checker has nothing to do with Bott's quality as a NWNF firm for flight delay claims.