So who is accountable...Aer Lingus or BA

FrustratedLee

Hi folks. 
So I should have been travelling from Manchester to Washington DC via Dublin on 8th September. On arrival at the check in desk we were told the Washington flight was cancelled and that we were being re routed via Heathrow with BA ( I had actually had an email after I had left for the airport telling me this just 3.5 hrs before departure that I hadn't read - it arrived at 0430 hrs). 
We travelled to Heathrow with BA and just made our very tight BA connection. That flight was just about to depart when it developed a technical fault that caused a significant delay. We sat on the ground for 4 hours and were finally told we could depart only for a separate fault to develop that caused that flight to also be cancelled.
We were accommodated on another BA flight later that evening (which was also lesser delayed) but which got us to Washington 6hrs and 5 mins later than the originally booked Aer Lingus service. 
I later discovered that Aer Lingus had another service operating on my original route later that day on which we were NOT offered seats.
So, which airline is accountable here? I'm already sick of talking to BOTS at both airlines. One of the tips on this site says if you were booked on Qantas flight that was operated by BA it's BA you should go to..however this is slightly different as we received a new booking ref from Aer Lingus for the new BA itinerary so not just a case of BA operating under an Aer Lingus code share flight number. I'm planning on using the online tool to commence the compensation process and don't want to waste time directing my claim to the wrong airline in the first instance.
Thanks in advance.

Alan_Bowen

The claim is always against the operating carrier, as you flew with BA and were delayed at LHR, that is who you should claim from. I agree there are two flights a day from Dublin to Washington but both are operated by narrow bodied planes with relatively few seats and I suspect the flight was full and the aim was to get you to Washington as close as possible to your original arrival time

FrustratedLee

Alan_Bowen said:

The claim is always against the operating carrier, as you flew with BA and were delayed at LHR, that is who you should claim from. I agree there are two flights a day from Dublin to Washington but both are operated by narrow bodied planes with relatively few seats and I suspect the flight was full and the aim was to get you to Washington as close as possible to your original arrival time

Cheers Alan....spoke to someone who worked for BA until recently in customer services...they said if booked through an agent ( I did- Trailfinders) should go to them...they've already rinsed hands of it. They said next port of call should be with original booking airline..ie Aer Lingus...contradictory info everywhere. Thanks for response. Inclined to lodge parallel claims with both and let them pick the bones out of it! 

eskbanker

Unless I'm misunderstanding the situation, you had an Aer Lingus Dublin-Washington flight cancelled and then, separately, a BA LHR-Washington one cancelled too, so that's one claim against each airline.

As @Alan_Bowen says, flight delay/cancellation compensation claims under the UK/EC 261 regulations are always the responsibility of the operating carrier, but if you keep asking more people then you might find some other (but wrong) answers too!  The definitive answer is of course the legislation:

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/eur/2004/261/article/5