British Airways cancels all flights to Italy until 4th April

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• Nick says:

  10 Mar10 March 10:28

  A sign of what’s to come if slot alleviation is granted. They have it for China (and now Italy thanks to the lockdown)… if they get it for all routes for purely commercial reasons there’ll be few flights anywhere, no cheap Avios bookings, no cash sales to fill the space.

  • marcw says:

    10 Mar10 March 10:36

    New season doesn’t start until the end of march. Stop all this slot related blah blah, at this point it’s irrelevant. I’m sure BA has already flown 80% of each slot for this IATA winter 19/20 season… so they are not losing anything for winter season 20/21.

    NOW, if cancellations continue well into summer season (let’s say, until the end of may), they may be a plot twist.

    • Russ 😷 says:

      10 Mar10 March 11:07

      ‘NOW, if cancellations continue well into summer season (let’s say, until the end of may), they may be a plot twist.’

      As in BA’s cadets at the flight training school at Oxfordshire, currently doing circuits in two seater small light aircraft, being given clearance to land at Heathrow, Gatwick, Edinburgh etc etc for experience 😉

    • Nick_C says:

      10 Mar10 March 11:22

      Virgin say they are flying some planes almost empty in order to keep their slots. Presumably they work to the same season as BA!

      • marcw says:

        10 Mar10 March 11:51

        They have to slowly create opinion, you know, so people are aware of. But it’s unlikely the EC won’t do anything for the current season.

    • planeconcorde says:

      10 Mar10 March 12:14

      Yes, but remember if flights are cancelled within the next 14 days on purely commercial reasons, such as low number of passengers, then EU2601 compensation will still be applicable.
      I am no lawyer, but I doubt not having enough passengers to make flying worthwhile would be considered an “extraordinary circumstance” in order to escape EU2601 compensation payments being made.
      If they cancel more than 14 days in advance then EU2601 compensation is not appicable. So yes, they probably could cancel many more flights between 25th and 28th March when the current winter slot period ends.

      • RWJ says:

        10 Mar10 March 12:35

        *EC261

        • planeconcorde says:

          10 Mar10 March 12:42

          Yes, I meant 261.

  • Lady London says:

    10 Mar10 March 13:06

    Can you blame them? Seems fair enough.

• CM says:

  10 Mar10 March 11:03

  Does this also include Sardinia? I haven’t seen it specified anywhere….

  • AJA says:

    10 Mar10 March 11:29

    Last time i looked Sardinia was part of Italy, so yes I’d say the BA cancellations also apply to there. Have you tried booking a flight?

• Alex barclay says:

  10 Mar10 March 12:17

  Ba have cancelled our flights and re booked us on new flights but have not sent an email to tell us
  Off flight changes do they have to inform us more than 14 days in advance off flights.

  • Lady London says:

    10 Mar10 March 13:04

    Airline can cancel any flight anytime they like. In places/with airlines/in situations where eu261 applies, if they cancel then you still have the right to choose refund or a reasonable alternative flight “reroute”. Your choice not the airline’s. If you don’t take the refund then airline must still provide or reimburse you any extra accommodation, transport to and from accommodation, reasonable local food costs at appropriate mealtimes depending on the timing of your replacement flight as well as the reasonable replacement flight you agree with them and they must provide. That’s called duty of care.

    You are not eligible for the compensation part of eu261 if cancelled at least 14 days ahead just refund if you choose, or reroute+relevant duty of care.

    For flight cancellations or significant reschedules under 14 days ahead you get compensation part of eu261 as well UNLESS the cause was outside the airline’s control.

    Be aware that to avoid paying justified compensation, empirically it seems 90% of the time the airline will lie and claim the cause was out of their control. Clue: weather is out of airline control so could exempt them from compo payment. However then why are other airlines still taking off pretty much at same time on same route. In this case you should persist with claim for compo as that looks like they are lying and really cancelled for another reason.

    All of the following are often tried as ‘out of airline control’ excuses but they have been ruled as NOT out of the airline’s control (so they must pay you compo in addition to any duty of care): mechanical failure, shortage of crew eg crew got stuck in traffic or unwell, late arrival of incoming aircraft, incoming aircraft problems (not eligible as the only exemptions are those which directly affect your flight not the aircraft that is coming in and will then go out as your flight) etc.

    When airlines lie you will have to fight for compo. But wearing you down seems to be part of airline strategy so turn to arbitration or law if you have to, lots of successes after airlines lied and delayed.

  • Lady London says:

    10 Mar10 March 13:35

    And lastly, if your ticket is an award/avios ticket then the airline that is cancelling/rescheduling you is NOT allowed to say they can only provide you a replacement ticket/ “reroute” you on flights that have award/avios seats available. In these circumstances how you purchased your ticket is irrelevant EU261 says they are supposed to reroute you with only reasonable delay including putting you in a revenue (ie non-reward) seat in any class that happens to be available.

    If that seat is in a lower class then if you take it mention that you will be pursuing your EU261 rights (ie compo) for downgrade – don’t give them a chance to say later you willingly accepted the downgrade, you only did because of the limited options their canx/reschedule forced you into etc.

  • Charlieface says:

    10 Mar10 March 16:10

    It’s always 14 days from being informed, onus on them to inform you and prove that they have done so

• Shoestring says:

  10 Mar10 March 14:17

  Wow – I hadn’t really thought about the huge number of people who are stuck in Italy thanks to the BA halt on flights – I’ve seen a few figures ranging from ‘tens of thousands’ to about 30,000

• Florian says:

  10 Mar10 March 14:30

  We flew back from Naples today (in the train back to London now..). We had a BA booking for Thursday but made another one for today last night. Both got cancelled and ended up booking easyJet for a huge premium but, feels good to be out… In this case, Ryanair is nicer than BA as they are trying to bring their clients back.

  Also, no police to be seen checking where were people going this morning. The whole thing seems poorly ran.

  Let’s hope that the UK reacts better in a few weeks.

  • Maul Mogba says:

    10 Mar10 March 15:54

    Why are you on a public train when you are supposed to self isolate for 14 days?!

    “Returning travellers
    Stay indoors and avoid contact with other people if you’ve travelled to the UK from the following places, even if you do not have symptoms:

    anywhere in Italy on or after 9 March”

    • Shoestring says:

      10 Mar10 March 16:02

      and if you get a cold or sniffle – anybody, even with no known exposure to people at risk of Covid-19 – within a very short period you’re going to be expected to self-isolate for 7 days

      advice could go official on this within 48hrs

      I wonder how widely observed that one’s likely to be?

    • Lady London says:

      10 Mar10 March 19:52

      Wow. Better stay off the Piccadilly Line then. Hadn’t thought of that.

  • Nige says:

    10 Mar10 March 16:04

    Wow! With symptoms not showing for 5 days, I feel sorry for all those people you have come into contact with whilst on the train…..
    Bravo!

    • Mark says:

      10 Mar10 March 16:26

      And to be fair, you can’t stay at home until you’re at home and, unless you have your own car at the airport, you can’t do that and not be in close proximity to others. Even if you check into the nearest hotel that’s not exactly self-isolating.

      There must be plenty of people reliant on trains, coaches/buses or even connecting flights to get home, and the level of cancellations are likely to have increased that as the options around direct flights diminish.

      • Florian says:

        10 Mar10 March 17:58

        That’s right. I don’t have a car and still had to go home… Glad that one person understand that you can’t isolate yourself in Gatwick. Also had to talk to someone from border control and staff on the plane.

    • Lady London says:

      10 Mar10 March 17:16

      Interesting. Seems to be spreading along main train routes from Milan.

    • Lady London says:

      10 Mar10 March 19:50

      This sort of thing happening is precisely why governments might be talking about containment but they know perfectly well it’s going to spread.

      Their real aim is to do everything they can to slow the spread to give families /social systems and health systems some chance to gear up to cope.

      Remember anyone else who needs medical help during this period for another condition, or suffers an accident, will be competing for medical resources also. So noninfected people also are at risk.

      • Shoestring says:

        10 Mar10 March 19:57

        Spanish flu: [In Pittsburgh, officials waited a month, until the peak of the crisis, before schools were shut. In St Louis, they closed immediately. The resulting graph of “excess deaths” tells a compelling story. In Pittsburgh it is sharp and severe with 807 deaths per 100,000 people. In St Louis they had, to use the vogue term, “flattened the curve”. The town had longer to cope, transmission was slower, and the death rate was halved.]

        • Shoestring says:

          10 Mar10 March 20:05

          or read about Lombardy right now – the health services (intensive care) are so stretched that the Drs are having to choose between who gets proper intensive care (to make a full recovery) and who is simply made comfortable before they get carried off – basically the latter group is 80+ people with serious respiratory problems, ie the Drs have already given up on them

        • Lady London says:

          10 Mar10 March 20:35

          This is what I am afraid of for my loved ones. I am unsure if it’s a good idea to return from the US to the UK in 2 weeks as planned.

          Also a couple of posters here have already said quite a while back based on their own family experience that the UK has without admitting it apparently implemented a policy of selective euthanasia.

          IIRC 2 separate posters said doctors in the UK health service choose not to treat anyone over the age of, say, 75 or so for many conditions. This is not stated openly apparently, it just seems treatment is ‘not available’ or accidentally is delayed so long that the person dies of their condition.

          It looks like the Lombardy doctors you mention are implementing a similar policy? Perhaps also previously implemented unofficially in that case also?

        • Lady London says:

          10 Mar10 March 21:22

          Ta @Shoestring came across that a number of years ago looking after someone close. Too painful to open the link but I recognise it

          Apparently medical staff were found out doing this and told to stop doing it. Fwiw my loved one came across it and commented that actually it seemed not too bad a way.

        • dgsupersonic says:

          10 Mar10 March 21:39

          Don’t worry, it is just a “pussycat” virus. :/

        • Cat says:

          11 Mar11 March 07:40

          In Italy at the moment, apparently its 8-10% of cases ending up in the ICU.
          They don’t have the beds.
          We certainly don’t (thanks to austerity).
          We’re going to be hearing “flatten the curve” an awful lot in the next fortnight.

        • Cat says:

          11 Mar11 March 07:41

          Dgsupersonic – leave it out.

• Bent says:

  10 Mar10 March 16:53

  I have a flight to Rome 27 March. Not cancelled in the app

• Trevor says:

  10 Mar10 March 17:00

  Slightly OT but we have Club flights into Chicago and back from Miami in May/June [Avios upgrades from WT+]. When does travel insurance kick in? Only when FCO say it’s out of bounds or if they cancel flights? We have a fairly tightly scheduled 3 week road trip so we couldn’t really just
  re-schedule?

  • Mark says:

    10 Mar10 March 17:51

    That would depend on your travel insurance policy so you’d need to check that to confirm under what (if any) circumstances you’d be covered and exactly what for. Normally any cover would kick in when the FCO advises against (all but essential) travel.

• Secret Squirrel says:

  10 Mar10 March 20:49

  Thanks Liam, good to hear some first hand experience.
  I’m keeping an eye on seat loads via seatspy, still got 2x months & who knows what is going to happen between that point!

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