Flight delay and cancellation compensation, BA ONLY

penelope_gibbs · 2 May 2016 at 11:52AM

My flight was cancelled in Feb due to "airspace" problems. I don't accept this but they have refused compensation and refuse to give me details of the airspace problems. The flight was from Geneva...not sure whether to use a lawyer, go to Swiss regulator or threaten small claims?

Caz3121 · 2 May 2016 at 12:11PM

penelope_gibbs wrote: »

My flight was cancelled in Feb due to "airspace" problems. I don't accept this but they have refused compensation and refuse to give me details of the airspace problems. The flight was from Geneva...not sure whether to use a lawyer, go to Swiss regulator or threaten small claims?

Have you checked your flight details on the NWNF sites such as EUClaim?...if there was ATC problems then they are likely to confirm that there is no compensation due, due to extraordinary circumstances
Also Flightstats will allow you to check the airport departures/arrivals to see if yours was the only flight affected or whether all flights around that same time were affected (indicating likely extraordinary circumstances) have you checked there?

These checks will either convince you that they were truthful and no compensation applies or whether you have a case to take to court

what date was your flight?

downsman · 5 May 2016 at 3:22PM

I am pleased to report BA have agreed to pay my claims in full - the cost of replacement clothing and 600 Euros for the delay, plus giving me a £25 voucher for the lack of in flight entertainment on the return flight!

PhilGrr · 7 May 2016 at 12:17AM

We were delayed on flight from Orlando to Gatwick for 3.5 hours. BA suggested this was due to airfield restrictions, and have rejected. I've said we were told technical issues on the plane, so have pushed back. Anyone any thoughts please? Thanks

Vauban · 7 May 2016 at 4:53AM

PhilGrr wrote: »

We were delayed on flight from Orlando to Gatwick for 3.5 hours. BA suggested this was due to airfield restrictions, and have rejected. I've said we were told technical issues on the plane, so have pushed back. Anyone any thoughts please? Thanks

My thoughts are: airfield restrictions, no claim; tech issue with your plane = €300 per paying passenger. Your unlikely to know the genuine cause for certain until you take them to court and they stump up their evidence. But you could also check flightstats to see if other flights that day were also delayed (suggesting an airfield problem).

tbr1978 · 10 May 2016 at 6:32PM

Hi Everyone.

If anyone has any experience of the following situation it would be greatly appreciated.

We were booked last week to fly (5th May) Johannesburg-Heathrow-Stuttgart with BA. The timetabled connection time at Heathrow was 1 hr 5 mins.
Our flight from Johannesburg (BA054) arrived on 6th May at heathrow at 6.58 am (3 minutes late arrival only). We knew we had a pretty short connection time to catch the 8.00 am flight to Stuttgart (BA918). The gate closure time written on our boarding passes was 7.40 am (the standard 20 mins before departure time).
We were off the plane at around 7.05 am and rushed from the C gates area to the connection hall at the A gates area as best we could. We used the express connection lane there, as directed by the ground staff . There was no queue in the express lane and we were at the passport/boarding card check by 7.15. Here, we were informed by the staff that, although it was not our fault, we were too late to make flight as the gate closure time had been brought forward 20 minutes to 7.20. This was supposedly to allow time to transfer passengers to the aircraft by bus, rather than boarding directly at the stand. The staff at the security check called the gate. She was told that the gate was closing right at that moment, and we had already been offloaded from the flight.

The end result was that we were re-booked on a Lufthansa service to Stuttgart via Frankfurt (apparently it was "not allowed" for BA to book us on the direct Germanwings service to Stuttgart that was leaving earlier), and we eventually arrived in Stuttgart with a delay of just more than 3 hours from our ticketed arrival time. Unfortunately I was too asleep after the 10 hour flight to make any proof of the timings (e.g., photos of the departure boards, etc.)

Does anyone have any experience of this kind of situation in terms of claiming delay compensation (or denied boarding compensation?). I have already contacted BA customer relations using their online form and got a (presumably standard) reply:

"Your claim for compensation has been refused because the actual arrival time of your flight BA0054 was 06:58 (local time) and the planned departure time for your connecting flight BA0918 was 08:00 (local time) giving 62 minutes to make the connection."

Surely the fact that the flight was closed early meaning that it was physically impossible to make the connection (in any case we had already been off-loaded) should be a factor here?
BA made no attempt to get us to the Stuttgart flight, even though it left 40 mins after we were at the security area. Nine other passengers were also offloaded from the same flight because of the early gate closure.

Any tips guys? Thanks very much

Tyzap · 10 May 2016 at 10:57PM

It sounds like a case of denied boarding so issue BA with a LBA if using a UK court.
Read Vaubans guide for all the details.

It also sounds like BA failed in their duty of care, if you can prove that there were still seats available on the Germanwings direct service to Stuttgart.

You could use the UK courts if you have a UK address that you can use, as I presume you live in Germany. Otherwise you would have to use the German court system.

I do wonder if BA918 was full, due to over booking, as they were very quick to have you off loaded.

Good luck.

tbr1978 · 11 May 2016 at 6:26PM

Thanks v much for the reply. Will look into it.

but I expect I would have to prove that
the gate closed early at 7.20?
and that I was at the connection hall at an early time before the flight?
I read something about getting cctv pictures from heathrow, but I don't know if that is actually something you can do.

Tyzap · 11 May 2016 at 10:31PM

tbr1978 wrote: »

I read something about getting cctv pictures from heathrow, but I don't know if that is actually something you can do.

Not heard about that before.

If the gate was closed 20 minutes early for everyone, without prior notification, I would imagine that a lot of other passengers would have missed the flight too. It strike me as being very odd!!

Good luck.

Alan_Bowen · 12 May 2016 at 12:46PM

At terminal 5 a lot of flights leave from gates 4 (domestic) and 10 for international flights. These however are just boarding points for the coaches who then take you on a 10 or 15 minute ride to the plane, parked frequently some distance from the terminal itself. If the Stuttgart flight was leaving from gate 10 the information boards would have indicated an earlier closure of the gate to allow time to get all passengers on board for an on time departure.

There is also an issue of 'conformance' at T5 which does not exist elsewhere, you need to be at security, where the boarding pass is scanned, at least 35 minutes before departure, that should have been possible in this case and normally you should be able to get to the gate in 5 minutes from that point and they would have known you were on your way. If you stopped at the shops of course, there is a point when the staff at the gate have to tell the driver to leave and unlike any other gate, once that happens, there is no possibility of boarding at all.

Flight delay and cancellation compensation, BA ONLY

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