Compensation for delayed flights Discussion Area

tasticz

Westin said:

tasticz said:

Hi All, 

Would a delay to flight operated by Qatar Airways, starting from Kathmandu (Nepal) --- Doha (Qatar) --- Heathrow (London) qualify for compensation?

Thanks

No, at least not EU261/UK261.

I somehow doubt Nepal or Qatar have much in the way of passenger rights during delays.

Thanks, I have read online that the usual 1 hr 35 min transit from between flying from KTM to DOH and DOH to LHR is not sufficient as the flights are more or less always delayed from KTM. This results in missed flight from DOH to LHR...

The next flight is 12 hours later from DOH to LHR, in these circumstances, what rights do we have as a passenger? Can we ask for hotel room, food, etc? or do we just need to hang around in airport?

Westin

tasticz said:

Westin said:

tasticz said:

Hi All, 

Would a delay to flight operated by Qatar Airways, starting from Kathmandu (Nepal) --- Doha (Qatar) --- Heathrow (London) qualify for compensation?

Thanks

No, at least not EU261/UK261.

I somehow doubt Nepal or Qatar have much in the way of passenger rights during delays.

Thanks, I have read online that the usual 1 hr 35 min transit from between flying from KTM to DOH and DOH to LHR is not sufficient as the flights are more or less always delayed from KTM. This results in missed flight from DOH to LHR...

The next flight is 12 hours later from DOH to LHR, in these circumstances, what rights do we have as a passenger? Can we ask for hotel room, food, etc? or do we just need to hang around in airport?

That transit time at DOH should be fine and is above the minimum connection time.

If your flight was delayed into DOH and you missed your onward DOH LHR flight then QR would look to rebook you on next best available service.  Reimbursement for delays will often come down to the reason for the delay and if something within or outside of QR control. I very much doubt you would get a hotel room for a 12 hr miss connection. 

JPears

hennycare said:

hennycare said:

NotoriousREV said:

Back in April our Ryanair flight from Manchester to Rhodes was delayed, landing 3 hours and 50 minutes late. The reason was that the baggage handling agent appointed by Ryanair (Swissair) were

An update if it helps anyone in a similar situation.
I appealed my case through ADR, which they accepted and on the last day available to them I received Ryanair's response. It is a significant document with a lot of legal speak. Effectively their argument is that the delay to the arrival and baggage handling caused the delay and these are out of their control.
Given they knew the inbound flight would be >2 hours late no mitigation was made. On the schedule of the aircrafts movements for its' previous flight its' Stated time of Arrival into Manchester (the airport I was flying from) was 10 minutes after my Stated time of Departure. Nowhere in their defence did they state that they changed the schedule to try and mitigate. (Or even say what they tried, just that it's hard keeping flights on time)

Furthermore:
They also got the time wrong, stating it as UTC, rather than UTC+1 (or changed time) due to being in summer time.
They include a bunch of stuff about caselaw relating to bird strikes being extraordinary events, without stating that was a reason for the delay anywhere, and using it as justification for extraordinary events.
I cataloguing my response I found other case law
- showing that the burden of proof is on the Airline to show that the delay "could not have been avoided even if all reasonable measures had been taken",  "That air carrier must establish that, even if it had deployed all its resources in terms of staff or equipment and the financial means at its disposal, it would clearly not have been able, unless it had made intolerable sacrifices"(Case C-315/15 Point 28, 29, & 30)
- that unexpected events should be expected because things do go wrong at times and this should be expected once in a while. The case relates to a fuel pump, the rationale being that "in the course of the activities of an air carrier, that unexpected event is

inherent in the normal exercise of an air carrier’s activity, as air carriers are confronted as a matter of course with unexpected technical problems" (Case C-257/14 Point 42). This explicitly is an unexpected event if there is a recall on parts which are in serve though.  

-Furthermore within the legal precedent the airline can claim from 3rd parties for costs relating to delays, therefore I find it odd that they are fighting this if they should be able to claim from their baggage handlers (Article 13 of the regulation).

I have filled in my comments refuting their defence and now I wait up to 90 days for the final Determination. I would be interested from others their experience of how long it took for the ADR to return a decision.

Baggage handlers are contracted  by Ryanair, thats thier choice. If there is a problem, its their problem and is still covered by the regulations. Usual fluff from Ryanair to try to pt you off a claim.

thedoberman10

Hi. I recently had a comp claim rejected by BA on the basis that 'when Air Traffic Control impose restrictions, delays and cancellations are inevitable.' However, the recent cap at Heathrow came into forced weeks after I booked my ticket. I suspect this may have more to do with BA's staffing issues due to their pandemic frugality. 

I'm wondering if anyone else is in a similar situation and what you have done to escalate this?

I am sure all airlines are peddling this line, whatever the circumstance (especially EasyJet), so am not keen to take no for an answer. 

eskbanker

thedoberman10 said:

Hi. I recently had a comp claim rejected by BA on the basis that 'when Air Traffic Control impose restrictions, delays and cancellations are inevitable.' However, the recent cap at Heathrow came into forced weeks after I booked my ticket. I suspect this may have more to do with BA's staffing issues due to their pandemic frugality. 

Not sure I'm following the logic of your middle sentence there - if there was no cap when you booked but one was subsequently introduced, then that would still plausibly be a valid reason for BA to cancel or delay flights?  Not saying it was the reason, but I just can't understand the relevance of the situation prevailing when you booked.

Unfortunately, it's difficult to establish the true reason behind flight delays and cancellations, so if they state that it was ATC restrictions then you'd need to compile a case that counters this if you have reason to believe that it was staffing related.  There's a fairly active BA board on the FlyerTalk forum where some well-informed posters seem to have inside knowledge, if it was within the last few days?

thedoberman10

eskbanker said:

thedoberman10 said:

Hi. I recently had a comp claim rejected by BA on the basis that 'when Air Traffic Control impose restrictions, delays and cancellations are inevitable.' However, the recent cap at Heathrow came into forced weeks after I booked my ticket. I suspect this may have more to do with BA's staffing issues due to their pandemic frugality. 

Not sure I'm following the logic of your middle sentence there - if there was no cap when you booked but one was subsequently introduced, then that would still plausibly be a valid reason for BA to cancel or delay flights?  Not saying it was the reason, but I just can't understand the relevance of the situation prevailing when you booked.

Unfortunately, it's difficult to establish the true reason behind flight delays and cancellations, so if they state that it was ATC restrictions then you'd need to compile a case that counters this if you have reason to believe that it was staffing related.  There's a fairly active BA board on the FlyerTalk forum where some well-informed posters seem to have inside knowledge, if it was within the last few days?

My apologies, I wasnt clear at all. 

The Heathrow caps came in on June 14, whereas my flight was cancelled on July 4! That makes more sense!

Also, is the burden of proof not on them to prove that this was an air-traffic control directive rather than me to disprove what they are saying? I thought that was what the EU legislation says at least. 

eskbanker

thedoberman10 said:

eskbanker said:

thedoberman10 said:

Hi. I recently had a comp claim rejected by BA on the basis that 'when Air Traffic Control impose restrictions, delays and cancellations are inevitable.' However, the recent cap at Heathrow came into forced weeks after I booked my ticket. I suspect this may have more to do with BA's staffing issues due to their pandemic frugality. 

Not sure I'm following the logic of your middle sentence there - if there was no cap when you booked but one was subsequently introduced, then that would still plausibly be a valid reason for BA to cancel or delay flights?  Not saying it was the reason, but I just can't understand the relevance of the situation prevailing when you booked.

My apologies, I wasnt clear at all. 

The Heathrow caps came in on June 14, whereas my flight was cancelled on July 4! That makes more sense!

Sort of, but if a cap was announced on June 14, that doesn't compel the airlines to immediately decide which flights they'd cancel, so a gap between the two dates isn't necessarily significant.

thedoberman10 said:

Also, is the burden of proof not on them to prove that this was an air-traffic control directive rather than me to disprove what they are saying? I thought that was what the EU legislation says at least. 

I'm not aware of any such burden of proof being in place, and don't believe it's stated in the regulations, so the customers are in a weak position when it comes to arguing the point.  What support do you have for your belief that it's related to staffing rather than ATC?

thedoberman10

eskbanker said:

thedoberman10 said:

eskbanker said:

thedoberman10 said:

Hi. I recently had a comp claim rejected by BA on the basis that 'when Air Traffic Control impose restrictions, delays and cancellations are inevitable.' However, the recent cap at Heathrow came into forced weeks after I booked my ticket. I suspect this may have more to do with BA's staffing issues due to their pandemic frugality. 

Not sure I'm following the logic of your middle sentence there - if there was no cap when you booked but one was subsequently introduced, then that would still plausibly be a valid reason for BA to cancel or delay flights?  Not saying it was the reason, but I just can't understand the relevance of the situation prevailing when you booked.

My apologies, I wasnt clear at all. 

The Heathrow caps came in on June 14, whereas my flight was cancelled on July 4! That makes more sense!

Sort of, but if a cap was announced on June 14, that doesn't compel the airlines to immediately decide which flights they'd cancel, so a gap between the two dates isn't necessarily significant.

thedoberman10 said:

Also, is the burden of proof not on them to prove that this was an air-traffic control directive rather than me to disprove what they are saying? I thought that was what the EU legislation says at least. 

I'm not aware of any such burden of proof being in place, and don't believe it's stated in the regulations, so the customers are in a weak position when it comes to arguing the point.  What support do you have for your belief that it's related to staffing rather than ATC?

My point is that if they are blaming the caps for my cancellation, they have no grounds to reject my claim given that the cap came in 10 days after my cancellation. Thus the cancellation was unrelated to the cap and was for other reasons. There were also no issues with strikes/weather. 

My belief is based on everything I've read in the papers about lack of staff, overbooking flights, long waits for security/background checks for new staff etc. That is clearly the reason for all of this - hence why BA, EasyJet and Jet2 are cancelling so many more flights than other airlines. The issue is that I obviously cant 'prove' that they 'didnt hire enough staff' and 'overbooked flights' as those are quite subjective points and are thus hard to prove. 

Also, BA said themselves before my flight was cancelled that they took this 'pre-empitve action to protect flights', indicating that it was their decision to cancel the flights, rather than one forced upon them by ATC/Heathrow. 

eskbanker

thedoberman10 said:

eskbanker said:

thedoberman10 said:

eskbanker said:

thedoberman10 said:

Hi. I recently had a comp claim rejected by BA on the basis that 'when Air Traffic Control impose restrictions, delays and cancellations are inevitable.' However, the recent cap at Heathrow came into forced weeks after I booked my ticket. I suspect this may have more to do with BA's staffing issues due to their pandemic frugality. 

Not sure I'm following the logic of your middle sentence there - if there was no cap when you booked but one was subsequently introduced, then that would still plausibly be a valid reason for BA to cancel or delay flights?  Not saying it was the reason, but I just can't understand the relevance of the situation prevailing when you booked.

My apologies, I wasnt clear at all. 

The Heathrow caps came in on June 14, whereas my flight was cancelled on July 4! That makes more sense!

Sort of, but if a cap was announced on June 14, that doesn't compel the airlines to immediately decide which flights they'd cancel, so a gap between the two dates isn't necessarily significant.

My point is that if they are blaming the caps for my cancellation, they have no grounds to reject my claim given that the cap came in 10 days after my cancellation. Thus the cancellation was unrelated to the cap and was for other reasons. 

I'm completely confused about your dates now!  You said "The Heathrow caps came in on June 14, whereas my flight was cancelled on July 4" but are now saying the cancellation predated the cap?

thedoberman10 said:

My belief is based on everything I've read in the papers about lack of staff, overbooking flights, long waits for security/background checks for new staff etc. That is clearly the reason for all of this - hence why BA, EasyJet and Jet2 are cancelling so many more flights than other airlines. The issue is that I obviously cant 'prove' that they 'didnt hire enough staff' and 'overbooked flights' as those are quite subjective points and are thus hard to prove. 

Also, BA said themselves before my flight was cancelled that they took this 'pre-empitve action to protect flights', indicating that it was their decision to cancel the flights, rather than one forced upon them by ATC/Heathrow. 

IMHO general stories you read in the press won't be anything like compelling enough to counter BA's assertions about ATC restrictions, and even the reference to pre-emptive action could easily be interpreted as being in response to caps being anticipated or introduced, rather than literally being proactive unilaterally.  Long waits for security are nothing to do with the airlines, so citing that could backfire on you....

However, if you assemble stats about services into and out of Heathrow on the day in question, it should be possible to analyse whether BA's cancellation pattern was consistent with that of others - I did this myself earlier in the year when making a compensation claim, but didn't end up needing the analysis, as they paid out without a fight (so they don't reject all claims).

Anyway, going back to your original question about escalation, you can keep pushing BA until you get their final response, and then take it to their nominated ADR service, CEDR.

JPears

Several weeks ago, after my BA flight was cancelled, i was under the impression that LHR required airlines to cancel flights due to the cap and the airline would decide which flight would be dropped.  If that is the case then I believe that you should be due compensation as it is the airline's choice WHICH flight to cancl, ie its within their control.

However, I understand that on some days, LHR directed which flights were to be cancelled.

If you find if necessary to take the case to small claims court (preferably after CEDR) BA will have to provide proof of LHR directing them to cancel a particular flight on a particular day.

I am of the opinion, having looked at BA flight schedules, for certain routes, daily for the past few weeks, most BA cancellations are staff issues not LHR caps on flight numbers.