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How I sued British Airways via the Small Claims Court / Money Claim Online, after CEDR failed

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This article explains how to take British Airways to the Small Claims Court, via the Money Claim Online process.  It is based on my own experiences.

Two years ago we ran a detailed article on how to take British Airways to CEDR complaints arbitration.  CEDR is an independent dispute resolution body that adjudicates disputes between passengers and subscribing airlines, and is meant to help both sides avoid a court case.

CEDR does not always work, however, as I found out myself last year.  I thought this article would make an interesting follow-on to our original 2017 article.

Taking British Airways to small claims court

How did I end up taking British Airways to court?

This time last year I (Rhys, not Rob, in case you didn’t notice the name at the top) was due to fly home after six months in the United States. I had been studying abroad as part of my degree in the suburbs of Baltimore, and had finished my academic year with a mini road trip visiting my friends around Pennsylvania and Maryland.

I was scheduled to fly on BA228, a Boeing 787 flight from Baltimore Washington International airport.  British Airways is the only carrier to fly direct from Baltimore to Europe.

I was staying at a friend’s home on the outskirts of Philadelphia on the morning of my departure. The plan was to give another friend a lift home on my way to Baltimore before dropping off my rental car and hopping on my evening departure.

That was the plan until, whilst having breakfast, I tried to check in – and found the flight had been cancelled.  The Rolls Royce 787 engine problems meant that my aircraft had been grounded.

This is the first time this had ever happened to me.  Although I’ve flown a significant amount, I had never had the bad luck of being on a cancelled flight.

From many destinations this wouldn’t be an issue – you’d simply hop on to the next available flight. Except, of course, that British Airways is the only carrier to connect Baltimore Washington International with Europe – and they only fly once daily.

British Airways wanted to reroute me via Chicago.  I would fly to Chicago the following day and then catch a connecting flight home.

Geographically, however, I was closer to Philadelphia International Airport.  I knew they had open seats from a quick search online, so I called the BA customer service team.

Of course, flying from Philadelphia would mean dropping my rental vehicle off at a different location, and rental car companies are notorious for ratcheting up costs for unexpected eventualities. I assumed, however, that British Airways would be liable under EU261 law and the Montreal Convention.

I was successfully re-booked and headed off towards Philadelphia, where my flight was leaving a few hours earlier than my original!  It was a little chaotic but I was glad to be sitting on an aircraft taking me home. I ended up paying almost twice as much as my original reservation to drop my car off in Philadelphia instead.

On landing at Heathrow we were also subject to a go-around – also my first! – which meant that we had to abort our first landing attempt due to high crosswinds. There’s nothing quite like being on a Boeing 747 which is about to touch down before quickly accelerating away.

Once home, I started filing the relevant paper work regarding my cancellation.  I was entitled to compensation thanks to EU261, since the cancellation was fewer than 14 days in advance.  I also submitted my rental car receipts, asking British Airways to cover the difference in cost between my original reservation and the actual costs incurred.

British Airways got back within the week, agreeing to my EU261 compensation. Because I had actually taken an early flight than the one I booked, and had landed within 4 hours of my original arrival time, I was only entitled to half of the €600 compensation package for flights over 3,500km.  On my request for the additional car hire costs incurred, however, they remained silent.

This started a lengthy back-and-forth between myself and the British Airways customer relations team.

If you look at the wording of EU261 you’ll see that Article 8(3) states that where a region is served by several airports and an airline offers a flight to a different airport:

“the operating air carrier shall bear the cost of transferring the passenger from that alternative airport either to that for which the booking was made, or to another close-by destination agreed with the passenger”

Now, in the law this is a little ambiguous since it refers only to the destination rather than departing airport.  However, it is based on a principle that if a carrier re-routes you, they need to ensure that you are not out of pocket for the costs of getting to an alternative departure airport or from an alternative arrival airport.

Furthermore, the Montreal Convention states that “The carrier is liable for damage occasioned by delay in the carriage by air of passengers, baggage or cargo.” It would be hard, if not impossible, to argue that an increased rental car drop off fee would not count as ‘damage occasioned’ by the cancellation of a flight.

Nonetheless, British Airways argued it was not liable, and I remained out of pocket to the tune of £282.

Taking British Airways to CEDR arbitration

If you have ever had a dispute with British Airways you will know that the next step in attempting to resolve the matter is to head to the CEDR.

As our 2017 CEDR article explains, it is a relatively simple process that requires you and the defendant to submit a statement. It is then adjudicated by the CEDR.

Though simple, it is a slow process. Once you have submitted your statement the defendant is given several weeks to submit theirs, after which you are allowed to add any additional comments. The dispute then joins the queue of disputes awaiting an adjudicator (this takes several weeks) before, finally, a decision is made.

It is, potentially, too simple. The adjudicator is unable to communicate directly with either claimant or defendant, and is therefore unable to ask for additional evidence to clarify any positions. There is also no way to appeal the adjudicators decision within the CEDR framework.

This is a problem when your case is as complex as mine.  The problem was that the original vehicle I rented did not have functioning headlights, which meant I had to swap the car free of charge mid-way through my renting period.  The car I dropped off was not the same as the one I originally picked up and it was not possible to easily tell from the final confusing receipt I was given what the additional drop-off fee was.

The adjudicator believed that the additional charge showing on my receipt was related to replacing the car mid-rental, instead of being due to the change of drop-off location.  This assumption could have been easily corrected had they been able to contact me to clarify the situation.

This was frustrating because the adjudicator had theoretically ruled in my favour but stated that as I had not suffered any extra drop-off fees I had no right to any claim on BA.  I went back to Hertz and ended up getting two written statements that unambiguously stated I was being charged a higher rate due to the drop off location.  There is no right of appeal with CEDR so the only option I had available was to go to the Small Claims Court.

Taking British Airways to the Small Claims Court

Whilst the CEDR is a simple process, going to the small claims court is an entirely different world, and slightly terrifying at that given it is an official legal process.  I may not even have proceeded had I not had a family friend who specialises in aviation law and deals with airline disruption all the time. He insisted that I had a case, and so I pushed on.

I did a quick bit of research on how the small claims court works. Despite a lot of legal jargon it is quite simple to file a claim, since it can all be done online. The online form asks for a statement, a timeline of the events, the evidence you wish to file and where you would like the hearing to take place. You also have to pay a fee upfront, which varies depending on how much you are claiming. I would have to pay £25 to file the case and another £25 if it got to hearing.  You can see the fee brackets on the gov.uk website here.

I resubmitted my statements, this time with the additional evidence I had received from Hertz, and paid the £25 court fee. Then I waited.

Taking British Airways to small claims court

British Airways was notified of my filing and a few weeks later filed their own statement, after which we again waited – for months.

Although filing a claim is fairly simple, there is very little information once the claim is being processed. I got various automated emails that required certain forms with complicated names be filed at certain times; every so often I was copied into an email from the BA legal team. In this respect, the CEDR is definitely a simpler process although I quickly realised that if I thought the CEDR was slow, law courts are in a league of their own…

Finally, however, eight months after the flight in question, my claim was accepted by the judge and I was given a hearing date in May.

I was given a final deadline in April to file my final documents and evidence.  Whilst I re-wrote and re-formatted my statements to comply with the court requirements, I got in touch with the legal team at British Airways asking if they did not want to settle the claim and save everyone a lot of trouble.  I did not hear back.

Two days before the deadline to submit my documents and pay the court hearing fee, the British Airways liaison got in touch, asking to settle the case.  They agreed to pay the full amount of my claim as well as the fees I had already paid to the Small Claims Court. After nine months of paperwork and fighting my corner I finally had my £282 back, plus the court fees I had paid.

My dispute with British Airways has taught me never to accept defeat simply because the process is long and complex.  I have also lost all my patience for dealing with the screw-ups of big companies.

Two weeks after my flight with British Airways was cancelled, I found being turned away from an easyJet flight.  I think I may be cursed now …..

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Comments (196)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

  • Catalan says:
    10 Jun10 June 07:13

    Wouldn’t your travel insurance have covered your out of pocket expenses too?

    • Rob says:
      10 Jun10 June 08:32

      Insurance won’t pay if another party is liable. You can’t go to Amex and ask them to pay up simply because BA is stalling you.

  • TigerTanaka says:
    10 Jun10 June 07:15

    Excellent article Rhys.

    Whatever happened to the guy featured on HFP who was transferring at LGW for a flight to the Maldives with an avios 241 and was bumped at the airport? Didn’t BA offer him the difference in Avios for the downgrade and nothing for his companion who hadn’t paid anything their “free” ticket. He was going down the legal route but silence since then.

    • Anna says:
      10 Jun10 June 07:35

      You may mean TripRep, directly above! There was something written about the outcome of his claim but I seem to recall that a NDA or similar prevented the full details being published.

    • TripRep says:
      10 Jun10 June 08:05

      Read above.

      Satisfied with CEDR result meeting EU261/2004 but not process or the timescale.

      If it ever happened again another reason for going the legal option, is that rather than accepting a settlement a few days before, I’d also consider actually going to court to set a precedent as a matter of principle.

      • Crafty says:
        10 Jun10 June 08:44

        Risky, as David points out above you could face a costs order against you. The court is not about principles.

        • meta says:
          10 Jun10 June 08:58

          True, but if you don’t use a lawyer then your costs will be just the initial claim costs and court hearing fee plus your time, but if on principle you might care about your time. Court will rarely order you to pay the other party’s costs. It would have to be seriously vexatious claim. One other thing, with small claims you can also claim interest!

          • meta says:
            10 Jun10 June 09:05

            @Crafty Sorry, didn’t realise it was about full settlement in which case yes, you can’t really proceed. If you’re not satisfied with settlement, you could always proceed, but you would need to argue why the settlement wasn’t acceptable as well.

        • Ken says:
          10 Jun10 June 09:24

          There is a expression often used by used by solicitors. “Principles cost money”.

          Usually your own.

          Never make things personal, what victory do you gain by taking up court time. BA wouldn’t send anyone, they won’t even send a solicitor, just rely on a written submission that full settlement has been offered.

      • ChrisC says:
        10 Jun10 June 08:50

        MCOL cases don’t set precedents.

      • The Savage Squirrel says:
        10 Jun10 June 13:41

        “I’d also consider actually going to court to set a precedent as a matter of principle.”. Hahaha. This is small claims court, not the Supreme Court or the European Court of Human Rights!! The case will not be noticed, let alone reported. Nobody is taking any notice for a precedent to be set.

      • TigerTanaka says:
        10 Jun10 June 15:02

        Yes. Sorry, I missed your earlier reply. Are you able to disclose what they settled on for a downgrade on a 241 booking?

    • Rob says:
      10 Jun10 June 08:31

      Silence is part of the deal ….

  • JamesLHR says:
    10 Jun10 June 07:16

    For those saying that Rhys should have gone to court, that isn’t how the small claims process works from my experience, on the other side of the fence, of it.

    It is designed to settle small civil cases, hence its name and so when the defendant offers a settlement, it cannot arbitrarily decide to go to court to “prove a point.”

    It also has mechanisms to recover increasing costs the further you pursue down the process so it doesn’t leave you out of pocket in that regard.

    Neither the small claims court, nor EC261 or the Montreal Convention detail compensation in this regards. Costs are covered on production of receipts, but incidental damage is not.

    The one problem with the small claims procedure is it is very much angled, if not subtle because of our presumption of innocent until proven guilty, towards the defendant having done something wrong. Rhys was correct in the process he did in trying to resolve it before going down this road, but many do it as the first point of contact with an airline before they’ve even approached the airline. There are lots of misconceptions on how EC261 works and what is liable and not liable under precedent and case law.

    That been said, I flew BA in 2015 from CDG to LHR and the flight was cancelled. I managed to get two seats from ORY the same evening and BA covered the cost of me getting to ORY for the flight. The protection sits more with the Montreal Convention for settlement of additional cost. The difficulty as Rhys states was the complication of the car hire situation. Had it been a taxi it would have been far simple are more than likely resolved quicker.

    • Cam says:
      10 Jun10 June 07:45

      I would be surprised if BA coveredbtge cost of transfer LHRvti ORY. I was denied a CEDR claim for both additional costs and EC261 when my flight was cancelled and rebooked from LHR instead of LGW ~1 week prior to departure. Since the times were similar, BA insisted (and CEDR agreed) they had offered an equivalent substitute, with no compensation due, as LHR and LGW were co-terminus.

    • TripRep says:
      10 Jun10 June 08:11

      Interesting points JamesLHR.

      So if the defendant offers an out of court settlement you GAVE to accept it?

      Doesn’t that dubious practice repeatedly allow the defendant to continually avoid addressing their initial failures to meet EU261 in the case of a downgrade?

      • TripRep says:
        10 Jun10 June 08:12

        *HAVE

      • Crafty says:
        10 Jun10 June 08:45

        If they offer your full claim, it is very difficult to reject this offer and still maintain that you are being reasonable.

      • ken says:
        10 Jun10 June 10:07

        They offer a full settlement.

        What more do you want a court to do ?

        Offering a full settlement is hardly dubious in this case. Arbitration found in their favour albeit wrongly.

  • Anna says:
    10 Jun10 June 07:18

    Thanks for the very interesting article and the link to the CEDR process, Rhys. This may be quite timely for me as I submitted EU261 compensation claims for myself and my OH a week ago after we arrived home from NYC 5 hours late due to a faulty air conditioning system on our plane. I still can’t quite believe BA will just pay up with no attempt to fob us off but we’ll see! Does anyone know how long we are likely to have to wait for a response these days?

    • Rhys says:
      10 Jun10 June 07:21

      When it comes to EU261 compensation where it is obvious that BA are liable to pay out – such as yours – it goes quite quickly. I was given my EU261 compensation in the first response I got. It took about a week from contacting BA CS.

      • Anna says:
        10 Jun10 June 07:38

        Thanks Rhys – let’s hope so. I’ve found them to be so far from reasonable in the past (they have cancelled and changed my travel arrangements on a number of occasions), it will be a very pleasant surprise if they just pay up!

        • Stu_Ny says:
          10 Jun10 June 08:30

          I’ve just had a claim agreed by BA. Short haul flight a week past on Friday (31 May) was cancelled and so we moved to a flight just over 1h earlier. I complained on Monday 3 and got an email yesterday agreeing my claim and saying they will pay us €125 each for our (in)convenience by bank transfer.

          I was fine with getting to our destination a bit earlier and was the perfect excuse to slip out of work an hour earlier on a Friday.

          • Freddy says:
            10 Jun10 June 09:37

            Stu your post caught my eye as I thought the regs were all about delay. Air France cancelled my flight the day before and bumped me to a Flybe flight around 2 hours earlier on the same day. Am I right that I should of claimed?

          • Stu N says:
            10 Jun10 June 11:30

            There are different rules in case of cancelations. If your flight is cancelled within 7 days of departure and it’s not extraordinary circumstances (e.g. weather or ATC issues) you have a potential claim. The only exclusion is where the new flight leaves no more than an hour earlier AND arrives within 2 hours of scheduled arrival (HT Harry). If you had to leave 2 hours earlier, on the face of it you should have a claim. .

          • Shoestring says:
            10 Jun10 June 14:58

            @Stu N – glad you got it 🙂

          • Stu N says:
            10 Jun10 June 23:25

            @Harry/ Shoestring. Yep, I was confused. Thanks for putting me right.

      • Dave says:
        10 Jun10 June 08:53

        I am 27 days and 3 different tickets with BA CS and still not heard back regardling my EU261 comepnsation for being downgraded

        I’m amazed how poorly you can be treated

        • TripRep says:
          10 Jun10 June 14:41

          Dave – I hear you.

          But after my experience, no about of BA attempting to dodge staying compliant with the law would surprise me.

    • Rob says:
      10 Jun10 June 08:30

      My brother had a 5-hour NYC delay last year when his Manchester connection got cancelled, and BA paid Euro 3,000 (family of 5) within a week.

  • Matthew says:
    10 Jun10 June 07:24

    I am having a similar issue with Virgin Atlantic & Aviation ADR/CDRL. My complaint has been outstanding since JANUARY 2018! I am finally in communication with the chief adjudicator with the hope of having the case re opened as Aviation ADR failed to look at my complaint and simply closed my case without answering or communication with me. Not the best service! I am still considering the small claims court…

    • Rhys says:
      10 Jun10 June 07:26

      I’m surprised you even got a response out of them. When I contacted the CEDR to clarify if there was an appeals process I was rebuffed and told my only option was to take it higher ie. to small claims.

      • Matthew says:
        10 Jun10 June 07:30

        I never gave up. I managed to find a series of email addresses and service complaint addresses and sent all of them a follow up email quoting their timescales and failure to respond. I managed to get a response from the directors PA who logged a new claim number for me.

        I think the motto is never never give up!

        • Rhys says:
          10 Jun10 June 07:45

          You may have been better off simply escalating it to the small claims court!

  • James says:
    10 Jun10 June 07:25

    Great work. Small Claims really does work to help the ‘little man’ against the big boys.

  • Stephen says:
    10 Jun10 June 07:43

    My Wednesday night KLM flight Amsterdam to Inverness was cancelled the day before.
    Was was due to a air traffic controllers strike on Thursday.
    I took a flight to Aberdeen. Can I claim for the train and taxi fares home to Inverness.

    • Polly says:
      10 Jun10 June 09:57

      Unfortunately not. Your travel inconvenience section under travel insurance is the one to go for there. ATC is one of the clauses excluded, as beyond their control. At least that’s what Ryan Air told me!

    • John says:
      10 Jun10 June 10:15

      Polly is not correct, you have a contract with the airline to be transported to your final destination.

      ATC strikes are beyond the airline’s control, but this simply means they don’t need to compensate you for the delay. It doesn’t mean they can strand you somewhere you don’t want to be.

      If the passenger initiates the rebooking to Aberdeen then the airline has no obligation to provide onward transport because it was at the passenger’s request.

      If the airline decides to rebook to Aberdeen the passenger doesn’t have to agree, and can ask to wait and be put on the next flight to Inverness (or ask for the taxi to be paid), I suppose the difficulty is getting evidence of what exactly was agreed, unless you are familiar with what the airline usually does in these situations.

      • Polly says:
        10 Jun10 June 10:22

        John, sorry. I did mean if the pax initiates the alternative flight, yes then insurance kicks in. As it appeared from the post. But yes, the airline has a duty to get the pax to their destination. But if it doesn’t suit the pax, then alternative arrangements come into play..ie insurance claim.

  • Rooster says:
    10 Jun10 June 07:45

    Waiting for a refund and they are completely useless, so will be filing a case if they do not get something sorted this week.

    • ChrisC says:
      10 Jun10 June 12:16

      No need to file a case.

      Write to BA legal department saying that unless you get the refund within 14 days then you will take them to MCOL It’s called a ‘letter before action’.

      Worked for me when they failed to process my refund in the timescales they told me they would.

      The call I got from customer relations specifically referred to ‘the letter you sent’

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