Compensation for delayed flights Discussion Area

eskbanker

MCLUCKJR6761 said:

Our family had delayed flights from Jersey to Glasgow on June 25 2022 which meant a delay of more than 24 hours.

Was this a flight that was literally delayed by 24 hours or was one cancelled and you flew on a different one?

MCLUCKJR6761 said:

Yesterday I received an update after chasing for months via the online form and was told I needed to send boarding passes for the rescheduled flights before EU compensation would be paid.

I can see why they'd want evidence that you flew but they should have their own records that confirm this anyway?

MCLUCKJR6761 said:

I also asked BA for the regulator or ombudsman and again I was refused.

The UK aviation regulator is the CAA, but BA is a member of the CEDR ADR scheme so that's where you'd escalate in the first instance, as explained in BA's published conditions of carriage.

http://www.cedr.com/aviation

malkay

Hi,

Wondering if anyone on the forum can help or has had similar experience with regards to flight cancellations of their inbound flight from a foreign EU country back to the UK on the grounds of adverse weather (fog) in Autumn described by the airline as "extraordinary circumstances"?

Myself and 2 travel companions were returning from Hamburg on BA975 on 14/11/22, a day where fog led to around 15 BA domestic and short haul flights to be cancelled. It would seem my afternoon flight home from Hamburg would have been the BA974 flight due to leave LHR at 11:50am which was among the flights cancelled.

BA emailed me at 9:30am local time on the morning of our flight from Hamburg (due to depart at 15:20pm) with only a link to their "manage my booking" page offering a flight home the next day. I tried calling them to see if they could reroute us any another way or with another airline that day, as we all needed to get home for work, however, dialling the number on the email for those already overseas on 4 separate led to the call being disconnected after sitting on hold for a few minutes each time.

We decided to book one-way flights home with an alternative airline at a cost per ticket higher than our original return tickets. We noticed the BA desk was closed at Hamburg airport (around the time the original flights check-in should have closed). All that was left were a pile of A4 pieces of paper saying the flight was cancelled an giving a different German number to call to rebook or get a refund. I went the online route to lodge a complaint.

After 6 weeks of waiting, BA have responded to refund the cancelled portion of our tickets but refuse EU261 and the cost of our alternative flights, fobbing us off to our travel insurers (who only pays out for every 12 hour period of delay in adverse weather). We also went through Resolver and got the same response from the same "customer relations" rep. BA are blaming LHR's air traffic control restricting flow of arrivals. They specifically said arrivals, not departures. I'm curious as they had 2 flights scheduled between LHR and HAM that day, ours was the 2nd flight. BA964 departed LHR to HAM that at 7:05am (a 20 minute delay) that morning and subsequently BA965 departed HAM at 12:27pm local time that afternoon, returning to LHR.

Has anyone gone through a similar experience before? Do we have a leg to stand on here or do we have to swallow the around £400 personal loss as well as the rejection of EU261 at 3 x £220 because there was fog in November and BA had no obligation to repatriate 3 Brits on the day they were due to travel or provide any customer service outlining our options and rights?

As I understand it, if we want to take this further our next option is to lodge a claim with CEDR, thought BA haven't made it clear whether their fob off responses are a "final response" and when I spoke to someone at CEDR they said BA should be referring us to them in their reply. Also I'm just short of 8 weeks since my complaint. The risk there from what I've read is that they will concur with BA's view that fog is an "extraordinary circumstance" and we'll have to pay the £25. Has anyone tried to do this with a similar experience?

Failing that, the other option is to go to a no win no fee solicitor like Bott & Co, who MSE mention on their 'flight compensation' page as having secured compensation even when the airline is claiming "extraordinary circumstances" owing to weather. Again, has anyone had any luck with this route in a similar experience?


Thanks in advance

goodie106

Hi My Partner and I travelled on a Turkish Airlines flight to Singapore with a stop over in Istanbul in September where we were delayed by 4.5 hours on our stopover. Turkish Airlines approved my husbands claim inside 2 weeks but for some reason declined mine as they said the flight was delayed due to them needing a replacement aircraft which was damaged in the air. I went back and said how can you pay my husband and not me and got the below reply.

We’re sorry that we were unable to reply to you in a timely manner.   We have reviewed your previous feedback at your request. In our controls, we have determined that the processes and evaluation process for your past feedback comply with all rules and practices.    As you were informed earlier, your TK54 Istanbul/Singapore flight dated 28th of September, 2022, was delayed 4 hours 24 minutes due to change of aircraft due to damage in the air, which is beyond our control.    Because your departure point is in a European Union member country, the rules set out in European Union Regulation (EC) No. 261/2004 apply. In accordance with this, airlines are not obliged to pay compensation where flight disruption has been caused by events outside their control.   Due to our wrong evaluation, on the feedback you have specified in your feedback, we have paid compensation within the scope of customer satisfaction even though our passenger was not entitled to.   We present it to your information, and we ask for the acceptance of our regrets for the application conditions causing your dissatisfaction. Surely this cannot be right especially since my husband got a message saying the plane was delayed due to technical difficulties!! Can someone please advise me on the next steps I should take or is it even worth fighting?

thelawnet

Is my compensation claim valid?

1. Ticket was Cathay Pacific purchased from Indonesia on an Indonesian credit card (not my own), return flight Jakarta - Hong Kong - Heathrow

2. On return leg, the flight was delayed for take off because they said the airspace had been closed and they needed to reroute.
3. This resulted in the flight CX252 which was scheduled to land at 0740 landing at 0855, but I didn't actually disembark the plane till around 0925 due to taxiing etc. The next flight was CX777 scheduled at 0920, arriving in Jakarta at 1320
4. Unbeknown to me, Cathay Pacific had already decided to bump me off my flight to Jakarta and sent me an email rerouting me HKG-BKK-CGK departing HKG at 1025 and arriving Jakarta 1755 (hence 4:35 late)
5. Cathay Pacific chose to hold the 0945 flight to Shanghai, till 1031, which then arrived on time. They presumably could have done this to my 0920 flight but chose not to do so. 
6. I received a second flight email before landing bumping me off the flights HKG -BKK-CGK and instead on to HKG-CGK direct, but now arriving at 2255, hence 9 hours 35 minutes late.

So as I see it:

1. They could have held their flight to Jakarta, resulting in no delay

2. They could have sent me on the HKG-BKK-CGK, which seems to the fastest option, scheduled to arrive 4 hours 35 minutes late, but on the day in question arriving early, at 1704, which would have only been 3 hours 44 minutes delay 

3. They chose instead to delay me 9 hours 35 minutes

So they could have:

1. Caused a delay of under 3 hours. Hence no compensation 

2. Caused a delay of between 3 and 4 hours, although scheduled at 4+. Hence £250 compensation.

3. Caused a delay of 4+ hours , hence £520 compensation

What is the appropriate level of compensation?

:

Caz3121

thelawnet said:

So they could have:

1. Caused a delay of under 3 hours. Hence no compensation 

2. Caused a delay of between 3 and 4 hours, although scheduled at 4+. Hence £250 compensation.

3. Caused a delay of 4+ hours , hence £520 compensation

What is the appropriate level of compensation?

:

none of the above are applicable as non-EU/UK airline departing outside EU/UK

You might be able to get compensation if your flight was:

• leaving from the UK – it doesn’t matter which airline it was with

• arriving in the UK and was with a UK or EU airline

• arriving in the EU and was with a UK airline

you would be looking for any Indonesian regulations (not aware of any)

thelawnet

Caz3121 said:

thelawnet said:

So they could have:

1. Caused a delay of under 3 hours. Hence no compensation 

2. Caused a delay of between 3 and 4 hours, although scheduled at 4+. Hence £250 compensation.

3. Caused a delay of 4+ hours , hence £520 compensation

What is the appropriate level of compensation?

:

none of the above are applicable as non-EU/UK airline departing outside EU/UK

You might be able to get compensation if your flight was:

• leaving from the UK – it doesn’t matter which airline it was with

• arriving in the UK and was with a UK or EU airline

• arriving in the EU and was with a UK airline

you would be looking for any Indonesian regulations (not aware of any)

It was a flight from Heathrow to Hong Kong to Jakarta. Pretty sure that is leaving from the UK....

glentoran99

thelawnet said:

Caz3121 said:

thelawnet said:

So they could have:

1. Caused a delay of under 3 hours. Hence no compensation 

2. Caused a delay of between 3 and 4 hours, although scheduled at 4+. Hence £250 compensation.

3. Caused a delay of 4+ hours , hence £520 compensation

What is the appropriate level of compensation?

:

none of the above are applicable as non-EU/UK airline departing outside EU/UK

You might be able to get compensation if your flight was:

• leaving from the UK – it doesn’t matter which airline it was with

• arriving in the UK and was with a UK or EU airline

• arriving in the EU and was with a UK airline

you would be looking for any Indonesian regulations (not aware of any)

It was a flight from Heathrow to Hong Kong to Jakarta. Pretty sure that is leaving from the UK....

It was the return flight from Jakarta to Hong Kong that was delayed was it not? End destination was Heathrow but Cathy’s Pacific aren’t an eu airline so even with the U.K. destination it doesn’t apply 

Caz3121

apologies had misread first post. (as a UK forum the 'return' is usually returning to UK) The fact that the initial delay was caused by airspace closure would likely result in exceptional circumstances being quoted. It does sound like a bit of a nightmare journey 

eskbanker

thelawnet said:

2. On return leg, the flight was delayed for take off because they said the airspace had been closed and they needed to reroute.

As above, this is the key to whether or not any compensation is due, as it sounds unlikely to be the airline's responsibility.

If it was somehow deemed not to be extraordinary circumstances beyond the airline's control, then the amount of compensation would be based on what actually happened rather than all the hypotheticals about what could have happened.

You could raise a separate complaint with CX about their apparently unfavourable choice of rerouting options though.

thelawnet

glentoran99 said:

thelawnet said:

Caz3121 said:

thelawnet said:

So they could have:

1. Caused a delay of under 3 hours. Hence no compensation 

2. Caused a delay of between 3 and 4 hours, although scheduled at 4+. Hence £250 compensation.

3. Caused a delay of 4+ hours , hence £520 compensation

What is the appropriate level of compensation?

:

none of the above are applicable as non-EU/UK airline departing outside EU/UK

You might be able to get compensation if your flight was:

• leaving from the UK – it doesn’t matter which airline it was with

• arriving in the UK and was with a UK or EU airline

• arriving in the EU and was with a UK airline

you would be looking for any Indonesian regulations (not aware of any)

It was a flight from Heathrow to Hong Kong to Jakarta. Pretty sure that is leaving from the UK....

It was the return flight from Jakarta to Hong Kong that was delayed was it not? End destination was Heathrow but Cathy’s Pacific aren’t an eu airline so even with the U.K. destination it doesn’t apply 

No, it was a return ticket from Jakarta to London via Hong Kong. This was the return voyage, hence it was a flight FROM London TO Jakarta, with a relatively short delay from London, BUT because Cathay Pacific chooses to sell flights with only 1 HR 45 minutes between them, and chose not to delay the second flight, there are not a great choice of alternative onward flights from Hong Kong to Jakarta