British Airways complaint - what are my rights?

SASH_F

BA state that i am not entitled to anything as they are "not liable" - this cant be right, can it?? Any help appreciated!!

On the 15th June i got caught in the chaos at LHR due to baggage belt failure. I arrived at 0630 at T5 to check in for my flight to be faced with huge queues and suitcases piled up across the concourse.

There were no members of BA staff to immediately talk to, so I checked in using the pods and joined the huge queue to check my bags in. I talked to other passengers in the queues who advised that there was issue with the baggage belt and baggage was not being checked in.

Having heard this I went and joined the huge queue at customer services who then officially informed me that the baggage belts were down and advised that I “should travel with hand luggage only as we cannot confirm that your checked baggage will arrive by the time you return”.

Following this advice, I emptied my case of toiletries that were above 100ml, throwing away many items.

I proceeded through security only to be told that I could have 1 clear plastic bag only. I then had to discard of more items (under 100ml) in order to fit all liquids and medication into 1 clear plastic bag.

Whilst standing in the queue at security, I received a text message at 07.19 from BA eService informing me to travel with hand luggage only. Unfortunately, this information came far too late as I had already packed, left home and was standing in the security line waiting for my suitcase to come out of the scanner when BA finally decided to inform me about the baggage belt failure and advising to travel with hand luggage.

Once through security I decided to go onto the official Heathrow twitter page only to find that they had tweeted that the belts went down on the 14th June at around 23:00!

I paid for an Economy plus airfare ticket to enable me to have checked baggage. BA were not able to provide this service and subsequently I had to travel Economy basic (No checked baggage), which is not what I had paid for and in addition lost the value of the items that I had to throw away.

I am trying to claim direct and consequential losses:
1. Direct lose - difference in price for Economy plus and basic airfare ticket
2. consequential lose - cost of items that I had to discard of.

photome

Possibly better to post in the airline compensation threads

shaun_from_Africa

Personally, unless BA are willing to make a payment as a gesture of goodwill then I don't see you getting anywhere.
Airlines can't be held liable for circumstances that are outside of their control and the baggage delivery system is neither owned nor operated by BA but by Heathrow Airport themselves.

As to having to discard toiletries at security.
Again, this is something that is totally outside of the control of any airline.
The one clear bag limit is set by the government and this limit is made clear on every airport and airline baggage related webpage.

Even though Heathrow may have known about the failure late on the 14th, this doesn't mean that they were aware how serious it was or how long it would take to fix and until the airlines received this information, they probably couldn't pass anything onto their passengers.