Reply To: BA cancelling flight BA164 and refuses to pay expenses – what are my options?

[JDB]

@JECHIEL it’s a bit messy if a cancellation morphed into a long delay. It would appear that BA can safely rely upon ‘extraordinary circumstances’ in respect of compensation, but still leaves them potentially on the hook for rerouting expenses and it doesn’t appear you incurred any ‘right to care’ expenses. A bit may depend on the precise wording of the cancellation letter you say you received (and whether it was generic or specific to your flight). The impression you give is that you went and booked yourself on Virgin without giving BA the opportunity to reroute you. While that is entirely understandable it could compromise your claim per the EC261 guidelines and the CAA’s CAP2155 guidance to airlines at 6.6 –

“Passengers, for their part, should give the airline a reasonable opportunity to identify and offer a re-routing option. In the CAA’s view, it should therefore rarely be reasonable for affected passengers to make their own arrangements to re- route themselves.”