BA4456 delay reason?

Martin81162

My wife and I flew back from Rotterdam to London City on 2nd July and the flight landed 3 hours and 10 minutes late. The reason given at the time was that the incoming flight was delayed. I thought I heard something about the plane being stuck in another country overnight and being late into London City, before flying to Rotterdam.

We submitted claims with BA the following day and 16 weeks later they emailed us their decision to refuse our claims.

What is odd about this is that they gave both of us different reasons for the delay, despite us sitting next to each other on the same flight.

My wife's email stated "Your claim's been refused because BA4456 on 02 July was delayed due to the restrictions imposed by Air traffic control."

My email stated "Your claim's been refused because BA4456 on 02 July was delayed because of the late arrival of the incoming flight which was delayed due to a medical incident with a passenger."

Having looked at the information on this site I'm not sure if we are eligible for compensation or not. I assume it would all depend on the original delay from the day before and if that was BA's fault for overrunning or ATC imposed an unforeseen restriction.

What do others think?

eskbanker

Both ATC restrictions and medical incidents would typically be seen as extraordinary circumstances beyond the airline's control, so would negate compensation obligations, unless there was a sustainable argument that the airline didn't take reasonable measures to mitigate.  However, airlines can't rely on lengthy knock-on delay chains (especially multi-day) and BA don't specify more detail about the ATC restrictions, in terms of where and when they applied, and likewise the medical incident may not have occurred on the outbound flight, so no harm in pushing back on these and seeking more detail, especially if you have any credible evidence of what you heard about earlier delays.