Flight delay and cancellation compensation, BA ONLY

eskbanker

dundee48 said:

My BA flight From ABZ-LHR was cancelled on April 20th around 6 hours prior to departure.It was the first BA flight out of ABZ that morning.I learned later that day the flight was cancelled because the last BA flight from LHR on April 19th was diverted to GLA the night before because of fog.This would have been my flight.
I was rebooked on flight later that day,arrived in LHR 6 hours later than i should have been.
Is a compensation claim likely or would it be outside airlines control?

No harm in trying, but I suspect that weather conditions adverse enough to divert an incoming flight would be viewed as extraordinary circumstances beyond the airline's control.  There's perhaps a debate to be had about whether or not they could have got the aircraft to ABZ in the morning but there may have been crew hours issues in doing so.

dundee48

eskbanker said:

dundee48 said:

My BA flight From ABZ-LHR was cancelled on April 20th around 6 hours prior to departure.It was the first BA flight out of ABZ that morning.I learned later that day the flight was cancelled because the last BA flight from LHR on April 19th was diverted to GLA the night before because of fog.This would have been my flight.
I was rebooked on flight later that day,arrived in LHR 6 hours later than i should have been.
Is a compensation claim likely or would it be outside airlines control?

No harm in trying, but I suspect that weather conditions adverse enough to divert an incoming flight would be viewed as extraordinary circumstances beyond the airline's control.  There's perhaps a debate to be had about whether or not they could have got the aircraft to ABZ in the morning but there may have been crew hours issues in doing so.

Thanks for reply,like you say,no harm in trying.

des1234

Hi, I’ve had two complaints with BA this summer, one was resolved in 4 weeks and I’ve just hit the 8 week mark with the other and heard nothing. Getting in touch with them is like trying to contact the other side, I wondered if anyone had any tips - phone numbers/email for customer relations??

silvercar

des1234 said:

Hi, I’ve had two complaints with BA this summer, one was resolved in 4 weeks and I’ve just hit the 8 week mark with the other and heard nothing. Getting in touch with them is like trying to contact the other side, I wondered if anyone had any tips - phone numbers/email for customer relations??

I've found a DM on twitter/ X a good way to get a response, though I've not tried it for complaints.

purplelemon

Is there any precedence for compensation eligibility when the cause was a knock-on effect caused by a passenger medical emergency on a previous flight?

Flight BA2237 (LGW>SJO) on 23rd Nov arrived 4h 30m late (STD: 11:05, ATD: 16:09), due to the previous flight arriving 5h late, which was due to the flight before that having to divert to Gander due to a passenger medical emergency (occurring 15:45, 22nd Nov).

While I obviously hope the passenger on the earlier flight is okay, I don't see any attempt by BA to reduce the delays to the following flights, causing at least 4 flights in a row (over 3 days) to run over 4 hours late.

I've read Vauban's guide, and note that when dealing with knock ons it is down to the time between the original incident and your flight. But I don't see any indication of what a reasonable amount of time is.

eskbanker

purplelemon said:

I've read Vauban's guide, and note that when dealing with knock ons it is down to the time between the original incident and your flight. But I don't see any indication of what a reasonable amount of time is.

There isn't any concrete guidance about what constitutes a reasonable amount of time, so cases need to be judged on their own merits, but the principle remains that the longer the gap between the original extraordinary circumstances and the affected flight, the harder it is for the airline to sustain the argument that the former caused the latter.  However, much depends on the specific circumstances, and in particular the routes involved, in that a delayed flight to a remote outstation of an airline's network would be expected to delay the return leg, but airlines would be expected to have spare resources at major hubs to accommodate such situations without significant impact on later flights.

If your scenario was that a BA flight out of Gatwick was significantly delayed as a result of delays elsewhere the previous day then that would certainly seem worth pursuing, but I'm not sure that there's any directly applicable case law supporting that - there is some discussion of potentially relevant cases here, but the one fitting the closest is from a (non-binding) junior court, while the senior court case is less applicable:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/80394247/#Comment_80394247

4ze

good afternoon, BA recently refused my claim for delay compensation stating it was "due to Air Traffic Control restrictions. The delay was out of our control and caused unforeseen disruption to our schedule". 

I doubt their reasoning and my understanding is there is no way of knowing if this is the truth without appealing and that I would need to do that through the CEDR. Because there is a £25 if you lose through CEDR, I was wondering if anyone could offer their thoughts on whether I should proceed with the case or not? thanks for your help

eskbanker

4ze said:

good afternoon, BA recently refused my claim for delay compensation stating it was "due to Air Traffic Control restrictions. The delay was out of our control and caused unforeseen disruption to our schedule". 

I doubt their reasoning and my understanding is there is no way of knowing if this is the truth without appealing and that I would need to do that through the CEDR. Because there is a £25 if you lose through CEDR, I was wondering if anyone could offer their thoughts on whether I should proceed with the case or not? thanks for your help

What makes you doubt their reasoning?

The regulations have always included:

Extraordinary circumstances should be deemed to exist where the impact of an air traffic management decision in relation to a particular aircraft on a particular day gives rise to a long delay, an overnight delay, or the cancellation of one or more flights by that aircraft, even though all reasonable measures had been taken by the air carrier concerned to avoid the delays or cancellations.

but have recently been updated with an additional slightly broader definition:

“extraordinary circumstances” means circumstances which cause delay or cancellation and [...] arose from the impact of an air traffic management decision and could not have been avoided even if all reasonable measures had been taken;

What were the circumstances of your delay, i.e. which route, on which date, how long was the delay, what was happening to other flights, etc?

sayling

4ze said:

good afternoon, BA recently refused my claim for delay compensation stating it was "due to Air Traffic Control restrictions. The delay was out of our control and caused unforeseen disruption to our schedule". 

I doubt their reasoning and my understanding is there is no way of knowing if this is the truth without appealing and that I would need to do that through the CEDR. Because there is a £25 if you lose through CEDR, I was wondering if anyone could offer their thoughts on whether I should proceed with the case or not? thanks for your help

There's a thread on flyertalk.com about delayed flights that might prove useful, but also worth bearing in mind that I've never heard of CEDR charging the fee

4ze

eskbanker said:

4ze said:

good afternoon, BA recently refused my claim for delay compensation stating it was "due to Air Traffic Control restrictions. The delay was out of our control and caused unforeseen disruption to our schedule". 

I doubt their reasoning and my understanding is there is no way of knowing if this is the truth without appealing and that I would need to do that through the CEDR. Because there is a £25 if you lose through CEDR, I was wondering if anyone could offer their thoughts on whether I should proceed with the case or not? thanks for your help

What makes you doubt their reasoning?

The regulations have always included:

Extraordinary circumstances should be deemed to exist where the impact of an air traffic management decision in relation to a particular aircraft on a particular day gives rise to a long delay, an overnight delay, or the cancellation of one or more flights by that aircraft, even though all reasonable measures had been taken by the air carrier concerned to avoid the delays or cancellations.

but have recently been updated with an additional slightly broader definition:

“extraordinary circumstances” means circumstances which cause delay or cancellation and [...] arose from the impact of an air traffic management decision and could not have been avoided even if all reasonable measures had been taken;

What were the circumstances of your delay, i.e. which route, on which date, how long was the delay, what was happening to other flights, etc?

Thanks for taking the time to reply. 

They didn't provide this reason at the time but said it was down to a technical fault. This makes me doubt them.

It was from Washington (IAD) to Heathrow December 2nd at 22:00. Flight was delayed for 4 hours 20 mins. I don't know what was happening to other flights or how to find this out.