Does un-received email count as "informed"?

scranton

Lat year I made two bookings. One to the UK for myself and another for the return for myself and my husband. At the time BA did a big cancellation of flights. I didnt receive any emails or calls so I wasnt worried until a couple of days before my flight when I went to add a bag and found it had been cancelled! Total panic and discovered that the return booking was also cancelled. I had found out literally a few hours after my free cancellation of hotel booking expired so I was pretty !!!!!! off!

Anyway, I rebooked at a lot of additional expense and after we got home I complained via the Resolver flight compensation tool on MSE. They ignored both complaints! I followed up weeks later and again they ignored it. I went to the small claims court and a judgement was made in my favour.... at which point BA say they didnt get the court letter!

Following this they emailed to say that they had sent me emails about the cancellations more than 14 days before the flights. This is so strange as I got the usual "upgrade booking mails" but nothing about cancellation otherwise I would have obviously acted on it.

They are saying that they know I received the email but also that I didnt open it. Not sure how they know that, but it makes sense even though they arent even in my deleted mails. Anyhow, they are saying that the claim is invalid because they "informed" me. Well, they didnt!

I'm sure I saw somewhere about a case where an airline was penalised because they hadnt made enough effort to tell a passenger that their flight was cancelled. Weve had a call from them in the past about a change and they have both of our phone numbers as we are exec club members. The lawyer from BA even went so far as to say that even if it wasnt my fault, it must have been a failure at my end. She also said that everyone else got their emails although how she knows this, I dont know.

Any advice?

eskbanker

Article 5(4) of the regulations requires them to prove that they notified you:

The burden of proof concerning the questions as to whether and when the passenger has been informed of the cancellation of the flight shall rest with the operating air carrier.

Singlemummy_2

If they use a mail system they can probably show the email was sent and not opened - we use the free version of mailchimp at work and can see when people have received and opened (or not) emails. I would Assume BA have a much better similar system