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British Airways questioned by CAA about its strike rebooking policy

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The Civil Aviation Authority is investigating whether British Airways has complied with its legal obligations during its strike mitigation actions over the last few days.

Under UK consumer law, airlines are required to do one of three things when a flight is cancelled:

Refund the customer within 7 days, for either the full ticket or for those sectors not flown

Re-route, under the same conditions (ie. class) to final destination as soon as possible

Or re-route to final destination at a later date agreed with the customer

British Airways CAA complaint

If your flight is cancelled within 14 days of departure you will also be due EC261 compensation under EU law, but this is totally separate to the UK regulations quoted above.

The CAA – see here – seems to have decided that British Airways has not been as forward about these options as they should have been.

In particular, British Airways is being accused of not offering to re-route some affected passengers on other carriers.  If British Airways does not have a re-route agreement in place with an appropriate carrier for your journey, rebooking will not be cheap and is clearly something that the airline would prefer to avoid.

If the CAA believes that British Airways has been encouraging call centre agents to not offer re-routes where a discounted deal was not available – or blocking such functionality in the booking system – it would represent a breach of its legal obligations.

British Airways has issued the following statement:

“We appreciate the frustration and inconvenience that this strike action has caused our customers and our teams are working tirelessly to help them.

As soon as we were issued with dates, we contacted airlines across the world to support with rebooking agreements, and since Friday we have been providing customers with the option to travel on other carriers.  ​

Our contact centres are operating 24/7, and we have brought in additional resource, with over 500 colleagues working to support customers during this time. ​

Our teams are providing customers whose flights have been cancelled with options to seek a full refund or rebook, including to a different date of travel, or flying with an alternative airline​.”

But a plus point ….. BA is now allowing multiple changes to cancelled flights

As the days go on, British Airways is agreeing deals with more airlines, and indeed UK train companies, to accept its passengers.  Malaysia Airlines is one of the latest to sign up, along with LNER trains.

This means that if you agreed a change last weekend when the strike was first announced, you may not have got the ‘best’ deal.

British Airways has now agreed that “Multiple changes will now be permitted for customers travelling on cancelled flights, if space becomes available on an earlier flight.”  This is not usually the case – once you have accepted a flight change, BA will usually refuse to discuss it further.

If you are not totally happy with your new flight options, I suggest giving BA another call in a few days.  You may find something better is on offer.

…… and a 2-4-1 extension

I also heard from a HfP reader who had managed to secure a six month extension to her British Airways American Express 2-4-1 voucher.  Interestingly, she had not actually got a flight booked but the voucher expired in two weeks and she was planning a last-minute break – something not now possible with most availability pulled.

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Category

British Airways and Avios

Comments (116)

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

  • Ed says:
    29 Aug29 August 05:06

    OT: I’m flying from NYC next week in Club World and received an email that my flight has been changed to an Evelop Airlines charter. Would you recommend trying to switch to a different BA flight or is Evelop alright?

    • TGLoyalty says:
      29 Aug29 August 07:04

      Does it say aircraft type? They have an A350 but I’m not sure there are many business class seats on it and what type.

  • tony says:
    29 Aug29 August 07:01

    Re the BA/CAA thing. Is there potential for this to apply to other BA routine cancellations? I’m still trying to resolve the fact they cancelled my INN-LHR flight at Christmas and tell me I’m on my own to make good with ground arrangements INN to SZG then LGW to LHR.

    That seems wrong to me but customer service is adamant it’s my liability.

    • JamesLHR says:
      29 Aug29 August 07:26

      EC261 wording is quite clear under Article 8.

      3. When, in the case where a town, city or region is served by several airports, an operating air carrier offers a passenger a flight to an airport alternative to that for which the booking was made, 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.

      • tony says:
        29 Aug29 August 07:36

        BA have already told me where to go – twice – when I pointed this bit out to them. Their default position is to say “well, we can give you your money back”…

        • John says:
          29 Aug29 August 07:45

          Well if you still want to go, then just pay for it yourself and file an MCOL afterwards.

        • JamesLHR says:
          29 Aug29 August 07:52

          Again, there is legislation on this.

          Article 5

          Cancellation

          1. In case of cancellation of a flight, the passengers concerned shall:

          (a) be offered assistance by the operating air carrier in accordance with Article 8; and

          There isn’t a timescale to the relevance of Article 8 through Article 5.

          You can either raise a small claims case or file a complaint with the CAA.

        • Lady London says:
          29 Aug29 August 18:43

          Iberia would only refund and not do a reasonable reroute under eu261 at V
          Christmas. That’s why I’m pi$$ed off with them.

          This systematic, planned, deliberate failure to meet obligations under EU261 looks like a general IAG thing as we’ve now seen both IB and BA systematically failing to provide under passengers rights.

      • Lady London says:
        29 Aug29 August 10:17

        And by the way that includes LGW to LHR, whatever BA says.

    • Lady London says:
      29 Aug29 August 10:21

      They are completely and utterly wrong. Call them again in a day or few with 3 or so options (specific flights and dates)you could accept, giving them an opportunity o rebook you on BA or Oneworld if you can. Timing is to give their procedures time to catch up.

      • tony says:
        29 Aug29 August 13:49

        With the demise of Air Berlin, that bit of central Europe is very poorly served by OneWorld beyond BA’s operations now.

        I mean it’s not difficult for them to agree a price/allowance for a taxi (there are 5 of us travelling). Anyway, have replied to my last note from CS with a link to the CAA article. Let’s see what they come back with.

        • Lady London says:
          29 Aug29 August 18:46

          Dont forget to charge them the interest of 8% pa accrued up to the date they pay out to you. Delay May be one of their délibérante tactics so they need to know it costs them money.

  • David Haws says:
    29 Aug29 August 07:08

    Will EC261 compensation still be applicable from 1 Nov onwards as it under an EU law or will I have to book with an airline based in mainland Europe to be covered by EC261 compensation ?

    • Nick_C says:
      29 Aug29 August 07:21

      All EU law has been incorporated into UK law.

      • JamesLHR says:
        29 Aug29 August 07:29

        The statue in UK law is; The Civil Aviation (Denied Boarding, Compensation and Assistance) Regulations 2005 (SI 2005/975)

        • Genghis says:
          29 Aug29 August 07:50

          Thinking back to my A level Law days, regulations (secondary legislation) are not statute (primary legislation)?

          • ChrisC says:
            29 Aug29 August 09:23

            SIs have the same force as primary legislation and it will remain as UK law until repealed or replaced.

            What will happen is that future ECJ decisions won’t automatically apply to the UK so in future our version could be different from the EU version.

          • NigelthePensioner says:
            29 Aug29 August 11:49

            Regulations refine Laws by Statute to make them workable, thereby having legal obligation and in specific instances, punitive repercussions.
            Codes of Practice are not legally enforceable as they are simply codes of practice and not Law by Statute……the Highway Code being a prime example – “please let buses pull out” – not on your nelly!

    • John says:
      29 Aug29 August 07:57

      In any case, it will unambiguously still apply to all flights departing the EEA and Switzerland (including BA flights *to* the UK).

      Also note that EC261 does not apply to all airlines “based in mainland Europe” – such as Aeroflot, Ukraine International Airlines, Belavia and Turkish (based in Istanbul, which is in mainland Europe) – however Turkey has its own flight compensation regulation which is almost equivalent to EC261/2004.

  • Richard says:
    29 Aug29 August 08:13

    Has anyone with 11th Sept flights and cancelled / not cancelled emails had their flights cancelled today? As now within 14 days (depending on time of flight) so EC261 due if subsequently cancelled

  • John says:
    29 Aug29 August 08:38

    I couldn’t access the Hilton website at all since yesterday afternoon, app searches work but not tried booking yet.

  • John says:
    29 Aug29 August 08:39

    OT got a Halifax 10% back offer for HI and HIX, may help a bit with Accelerate if your offers are worth going for

  • TripRep says:
    29 Aug29 August 08:41

    Looks like it could be related to currency conversion, I’m trying to pay in GBP to avoid foreign exchange charges

  • George K says:
    29 Aug29 August 08:44

    I was refused an easyjet booking which would have been the ideal resolution to our cancelled flight on the 9th. Would that essentially be a breach of the CAA rules?

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

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