Flight delay - passenger assistance

gymguy2017

My flight arrival was delayed by over 3 hours so I thought I would be eligible for compensation.
However, the airline says a large proportion of the delay was because there was a delay in passenger assistance helping a passenger on the previous flight getting off (and that this is the airports responsibility and not the airlines control and so they would not accept responsibility).
Is this a correct?
Thanks.

eskbanker

If such assistance services are provided by the airport rather than the airline then I can see the argument that they're outside the airline's control and that they could justifiably invoke extraordinary circumstances and withhold compensation - have they indicated how much delay was caused by that issue and how much wasn't, i.e. was the latter still more than three hours?

gymguy2017

The airline said it was under 3 hours they admit was under their control after the assistance time was taken off. So I won't be eligible for compensation.
But I had to take it to CEDR to get the details of the delay as the airline refused to give me the details through their Customer Relations team (despite multiple e-mails back and forth) so that I could understand whether I was eligible or not, and the airline said they would not engage in any further discussion about the case. I hope CEDR don't come asking for £25 as it was the only was to get answers from the airline.

eskbanker

gymguy2017 said:

The airline said it was under 3 hours they admit was under their control after the assistance time was taken off. So I won't be eligible for compensation.
But I had to take it to CEDR to get the details of the delay as the airline refused to give me the details through their Customer Relations team (despite multiple e-mails back and forth) so that I could understand whether I was eligible or not, and the airline said they would not engage in any further discussion about the case. I hope CEDR don't come asking for £25 as it was the only was to get answers from the airline.

I hadn't appreciated that you'd already taken this to CEDR, so have they rejected your claim too?  It is an unfortunate aspect of the regulatory regime that the airline effectively holds all the cards and isn't required to disclose much detail beyond simply rejecting a claim with a brief reason for doing so, but what was it that made you suspect that they weren't being entirely truthful?

gymguy2017

Yes, the airline just kept saying we have reviewed your claim and due to operational reasons you are not eligible, and I kept going back asking please can you explain these reasons as the information we got from the airport staff made me think the airline were responsible (we didn't get information that is was X minutes due to passenger assistance, Y minutes due to another problem, Z minutes due to another problem). The airline eventually said to me we will not be providing any further response. So I thought the only way to check was taking it to the ADR which is CEDR to try and get some answers. The airline did (after a long time) respond to CEDR with the information I kept asking them for and which they refused to give me. It doesn't seem fair that you have to take it to an alternative resolution service to get answers!

eskbanker

gymguy2017 said:

Yes, the airline just kept saying we have reviewed your claim and due to operational reasons you are not eligible, and I kept going back asking please can you explain these reasons as the information we got from the airport staff made me think the airline were responsible (we didn't get information that is was X minutes due to passenger assistance, Y minutes due to another problem, Z minutes due to another problem). The airline eventually said to me we will not be providing any further response. So I thought the only way to check was taking it to the ADR which is CEDR to try and get some answers. The airline did (after a long time) respond to CEDR with the information I kept asking them for and which they refused to give me. It doesn't seem fair that you have to take it to an alternative resolution service to get answers!

That's pretty poor to be simply citing 'operational reasons' rather than making at least some attempt to explain why the reason qualified as extraordinary circumstances for the purposes of denying regulatory compensation, which airline was it?

gymguy2017

British Airways