Rules for re routed flights

ranjitnarula

Need some help please. I had booked a flight from London to Catania in Sicily but the fight was cancelled by British Airways due to a fire at the Catania terminal. I had to attend a wedding but British Airways could not provide me an alternative. I thus asked BA to reroute me to Naples and I decided to drive from there to Catania. My insurance company is refusing to pay for my travel from Naples to Catania and back citing the same reason as BA ie if I accept a reroute to any other destination they are not willing to pay the travel costs to get to my final destination. Can someone help pls?

eskbanker

If you maintained to the airline that you still wanted to get to the booked destination, then they should have either arranged transport or reimbursed its cost, as per the CAA rerouting guidance:

Re-routing via alternative airports

6.8 Where airlines offer to re-route passengers to / from a different airport than the original flight, the airline should organise the transport to / from that airport. The CAA does not expect airlines to fail in this obligation. However, where such a failure occurs, the airline should provide prompt re-imbursement of any expenses incurred by affected passengers in travelling to / from the alternative airport and should inform the affected passenger directly, for example by email, about how to make a claim. 

The issue here is likely to be the extent to which you waived that by asking to reroute to Naples, but under the regulations, BA were expected to offer options to get you to your final destination....

tightauldgit

eskbanker said:

If you maintained to the airline that you still wanted to get to the booked destination, then they should have either arranged transport or reimbursed its cost, as per the CAA rerouting guidance:

Re-routing via alternative airports

6.8 Where airlines offer to re-route passengers to / from a different airport than the original flight, the airline should organise the transport to / from that airport. The CAA does not expect airlines to fail in this obligation. However, where such a failure occurs, the airline should provide prompt re-imbursement of any expenses incurred by affected passengers in travelling to / from the alternative airport and should inform the affected passenger directly, for example by email, about how to make a claim. 

The issue here is likely to be the extent to which you waived that by asking to reroute to Naples, but under the regulations, BA were expected to offer options to get you to your final destination....

I'm not sure to what extent airlines are required to offer a re-routing on these terms though. Just checked and Naples to Catania is a 7 hour drive so it's not exactly a nearby airport. Does customer asking for a re-route invalidate these obligations? Or indeed, by accepting the customers request are BA also accepting the obligations as above to onward route them?

Caz3121

I had a BA flight from Heathrow to Edinburgh cancelled (they cancelled all Edinburgh flights due weather) BA were happy to book me a hotel and a flight the next morning. I asked to be rereouted to Glasgow instead which was accepted but was told as was voluntary request there would be no travel provided/reimbursement for travel from Glasgow to Edinburgh (no too big a deal as just wanted to get home)

eskbanker

tightauldgit said:

eskbanker said:

If you maintained to the airline that you still wanted to get to the booked destination, then they should have either arranged transport or reimbursed its cost, as per the CAA rerouting guidance:

Re-routing via alternative airports

6.8 Where airlines offer to re-route passengers to / from a different airport than the original flight, the airline should organise the transport to / from that airport. The CAA does not expect airlines to fail in this obligation. However, where such a failure occurs, the airline should provide prompt re-imbursement of any expenses incurred by affected passengers in travelling to / from the alternative airport and should inform the affected passenger directly, for example by email, about how to make a claim. 

The issue here is likely to be the extent to which you waived that by asking to reroute to Naples, but under the regulations, BA were expected to offer options to get you to your final destination....

I'm not sure to what extent airlines are required to offer a re-routing on these terms though. Just checked and Naples to Catania is a 7 hour drive so it's not exactly a nearby airport. Does customer asking for a re-route invalidate these obligations? Or indeed, by accepting the customers request are BA also accepting the obligations as above to onward route them?

The CAA guidance is just that, guidance, but the airline has a clear regulatory obligation to offer the passenger the choice between a refund or "re-routing, under comparable transport conditions, to their final destination".  However, both that regulation and the CAA guidance refer to what the airline offers the passenger, rather than what the passenger chooses to ask for - to me it's clear that BA was required to offer OP a rerouting to Catania, so if they failed to do so then they're in breach, but I can see the argument that if OP said 'OK, you can't get me to Catania, can you get me to Naples instead?' then BA could regard that as a "voluntary request", as mentioned above, and consider that this alternative flight would be a full and final resolution, although this concept isn't embodied within the regulations.

OP - to what extent were you pushing them to abide by their regulatory obligations?  Do you have any audit trail of the lack of options offered by BA?

tightauldgit

eskbanker said:

tightauldgit said:

eskbanker said:

If you maintained to the airline that you still wanted to get to the booked destination, then they should have either arranged transport or reimbursed its cost, as per the CAA rerouting guidance:

Re-routing via alternative airports

6.8 Where airlines offer to re-route passengers to / from a different airport than the original flight, the airline should organise the transport to / from that airport. The CAA does not expect airlines to fail in this obligation. However, where such a failure occurs, the airline should provide prompt re-imbursement of any expenses incurred by affected passengers in travelling to / from the alternative airport and should inform the affected passenger directly, for example by email, about how to make a claim. 

The issue here is likely to be the extent to which you waived that by asking to reroute to Naples, but under the regulations, BA were expected to offer options to get you to your final destination....

I'm not sure to what extent airlines are required to offer a re-routing on these terms though. Just checked and Naples to Catania is a 7 hour drive so it's not exactly a nearby airport. Does customer asking for a re-route invalidate these obligations? Or indeed, by accepting the customers request are BA also accepting the obligations as above to onward route them?

The CAA guidance is just that, guidance, but the airline has a clear regulatory obligation to offer the passenger the choice between a refund or "re-routing, under comparable transport conditions, to their final destination".  However, both that regulation and the CAA guidance refer to what the airline offers the passenger, rather than what the passenger chooses to ask for - to me it's clear that BA was required to offer OP a rerouting to Catania, so if they failed to do so then they're in breach, but I can see the argument that if OP said 'OK, you can't get me to Catania, can you get me to Naples instead?' then BA could regard that as a "voluntary request", as mentioned above, and consider that this alternative flight would be a full and final resolution, although this concept isn't embodied within the regulations.

OP - to what extent were you pushing them to abide by their regulatory obligations?  Do you have any audit trail of the lack of options offered by BA?

I'm looking at the CAA site now and to me it's not really clear. They say you have a right to a refund or an alternative flight but I can't see exactly what the limitations on that alternative are. Looking at the guidance it does seem a bit clearer that they should have offered an alternative re-routing but it also says that airlines don't have to do unreasonable things (like paying for huge taxi fares to re-route people) - but it's not super clear what is and isn't unreasonable. OP says they drove from Naples to Catania - what is being claimed? A day's car hire? A weeks car hire? Mileage? 

I wonder if OP might be better off pushing back on not being offered any re-routing options and having to do the work of finding an option themself which the CAA says shouldn't be the case? 

I also wonder if Catania was closed whether that impacts what BA were obliged to offer - i.e there were no alternatives to get you to Catania that day a the airport was closed.