Late cancelled flight

jbarns

Me and a colleague had an early morning flight booked business class from Gatwick to Amsterdam.  We were staying at a hotel the night before as had to be at airport for 5.30am.  The flight was cancelled at 18:30 the night before and eventually got a new flight booked from City Airport to Amsterdam.  We had to book another hotel at City airport and it was too late to cancel hotel at Gatwick.  I also wouldn’t have booked business from City as they have no lounge.  BA are saying they have no liability for hotel and have ignored my message about business class from City.  Do I have any rights here?

Westin

You missed out the critical information. Why was the flight cancelled?

eskbanker

jbarns said:

Me and a colleague had an early morning flight booked business class from Gatwick to Amsterdam.  We were staying at a hotel the night before as had to be at airport for 5.30am.  The flight was cancelled at 18:30 the night before and eventually got a new flight booked from City Airport to Amsterdam.  We had to book another hotel at City airport and it was too late to cancel hotel at Gatwick.  I also wouldn’t have booked business from City as they have no lounge.  BA are saying they have no liability for hotel and have ignored my message about business class from City.  Do I have any rights here?

BA are correct that under the UK261 flight delay/cancellation regulations they have no liability to rebook you into different hotel accommodation for the night prior to departure, but if rerouting they're obliged to offer you comparable transport conditions, i.e. in the same class as the original flight booking.

However, when cancelling a flight they're required to offer you the choice of a refund or rerouting, so if your preference was to fly economy then you'd probably have been better taking the refund and doing the rebooking yourself, and you'd potentially have had enough spare in the kitty for the new hotel and also (paid) lounge access at LCY.

As above, you may have separate compensation rights too, depending on the root cause of the cancellation, i.e. if it wasn't extraordinary circumstances beyond the airline's control....

jbarns

They said the cancellation was due to staff issues

mdann52

What was the difference in departure and arrival times?

jbarns

There was only 15 minutes difference in the new departure and arrival times..

Update:  I went back to BA and said I wanted it escalated and they have now come back and provided a goodwill payment for the hotel rooms and the economy / business class difference.  Very surprised but happy with the outcome.

saajan_12

jbarns said:

Me and a colleague had an early morning flight booked business class from Gatwick to Amsterdam.  We were staying at a hotel the night before as had to be at airport for 5.30am.  The flight was cancelled at 18:30 the night before and eventually got a new flight booked from City Airport to Amsterdam.  We had to book another hotel at City airport and it was too late to cancel hotel at Gatwick.  I also wouldn’t have booked business from City as they have no lounge.  BA are saying they have no liability for hotel and have ignored my message about business class from City.  Do I have any rights here?

Could you not have kept the Gatwick hotel, and had BA cover the transport from there to City Airport as part of the airport? Arguably that's part of rerouting you from your original start point to your destination. Most people don't start their morning a stone's throw from the airport. It may have made sense due to a lack of public transport in the early hours, but if BA is covering the road transport now.. 

Outside the routing / refund from your original start & destination airports, BA are only responsible for fixed compensation if there was a delay exceeding certain minimums. The idea of that is to cover whatever inconvenience or ancillary costs you faced before or after the flight.. sometimes it'll be more, sometimes it'll be less than you actually spend.