BA delayed flight compensation refused – what next?

[bettsd007]

Hi HFP’ers.

I raised a claim for compensation for a 3 hour delayed flight with BA and after a month they’ve finally replied saying the flight was actually only delayed 179 minutes (yes 1 minute short of 3 hours!) and my claim has been refused. The flight was also sent without adequate catering due to issues at Heathrow that were particular to my flight (the plane was taken for servicing after the inbound and therefore arrived late at the gate and had other multiple issues before we pushed back from LHR 3.5 hours late). Staff were ill prepared and rude to my children who were told to wait for their food until everyone else in Club World had been fed. They ended up not receiving any food at all. My status is Gold if that makes any difference.
Do I have any other options?

• This topic was modified 54 years, 11 months ago by .

[Richie]

If the delay was around 180 minutes and not 186 minutes or more, I wouldn’t bother. With the service failures argue for some Avios.

[Lady London]

Ask on Flyertalk if someone with access to an official aviation source could check the length of the delay for your flight nunber, route and departure time and date. It has to be officially recorded. I think expertflyer is one website where this can be verified. I would defo want to verify what BA says.

With great respect to BA’s accuracy and truthfulness, with delay compensation, as it was fully the fault of the airline, potentially payable for multiple seats being you and each of your children, I’d put the effort into checking the official records to check what had to be officially filed about the delay. Your departure time is when your aircraft was pushed back, though, or moved from its stand, and not when its wheels left the ground.

Meanwhile pursue the service failure and the fact that your children starved (how long was the flight?) separately.

Let us know what happens on each of these counts.

[bettsd007]

Thanks for the responses and I’ll definitely do the check ups highlighted. The flight certainly left LHR 3hrs and 6 minutes late as i sent them proof of that from their own system as well as from Flightaware, but the arrival time is subject to much debate 🙂 Scheduled departure was 3.15pm, actual was 6.21pm

The flight was LHR to LAX and my girls did finally get fed the first meal (although the cabin crew told them they would be fed last to see what was left for them to eat!) but did not get fed the 2nd meal as they were forgotten until I chased down the cabin crew about the issue. They then responded saying they would see what they could find from another cabin but did not return.

Thanks again for the help

[Tracey]

It’s arrival time at destination that counts, departure time is irrelevant. So you need to find out the official time it landed rather than when it departed.

[Lady London]

If it’s LAX isn’t there a longer delay requirement for compo, for longhaul? IIRC 5 hours min? It will be in EU261 / UK261

[NorthernLass]

This rings a bell – we were delayed returning from JFK a couple of years ago and I’m sure the compo time was 5 hours. Initial delay was only 2.5 hours as BA made sure the long haul leg took off before anyone could claim compo, but it stretched to 5 hours for us because we missed our domestic connection at LHR and had to wait till later for another!

• This reply was modified 54 years, 11 months ago by .

[Rui N.]

Lady London wrote:

If it’s LAX isn’t there a longer delay requirement for compo, for longhaul? IIRC 5 hours min? It will be in EU261 / UK261

No, it’s 3 hours still. What’s changes with the distance is the value of the compensation.
However, as Tracy noted, departure time is irrelevant, what matters is the delay at arrival.

EDIT1: Duty of care does change depending on both distance and time of delay: https://www.caa.co.uk/passengers/resolving-travel-problems/delays-and-cancellations/delays/

EDIT2: Well, apparently if the delay is between 3 and 4 hours, compensation is halved for flights over 3500km.

• This reply was modified 54 years, 11 months ago by .

[NorthernLass]

https://www.bottonline.co.uk/flight-delay-compensation/claim-guides/eu-regulation-261-2004#:~:text=EU%20Reg%20261%20requires%20airlines%20to%20compensate%20passengers,delay%20or%20cancellation%20was%20within%20the%20airline%E2%80%99s%20control.

No, times varies with distance!

[Rui N.]

See my edits. The value of compensation varies, but it applies after 3 hours in all cases.

[Lady London]

******Another reply to Rui’s 12:09 posting lost after 2 !! 2 !! for heaven’s sake – rounds of captcha. ******

[ChrisC]

Tracey wrote:

It’s arrival time at destination that counts, departure time is irrelevant. So you need to find out the official time it landed rather than when it departed.

It’s actually the time the doors are open and passengers are able to leave the plane.

Also it’s important to note that the delay time can be parsed into delay elements the airline can control and the delay elements they can’t.

A 4 hours delay can soon be exempt if say 80 minutes of the delay was down to weather or ATC issues.

[bettsd007]

Thanks everyone, I really appreciate all the responses. BA has said the official arrival time was 2hrs 59 minutes late. I’m going to validate that in line with Lady London’s guidance. I’ll be pursuing them on the treatment of my children as a separate issue as what happened there was truly unacceptable.

[Matt]

The important issue here is the passenger doors open time, not cargo door open, not landing time. BA will have all the times recorded -might be worth asking for them.

[Lady London]

Rui N. wrote:

Lady London wrote:

If it’s LAX isn’t there a longer delay requirement for compo, for longhaul? IIRC 5 hours min? It will be in EU261 / UK261

No, it’s 3 hours still. What’s changes with the distance is the value of the compensation.
However, as Tracy noted, departure time is irrelevant, what matters is the delay at arrival.

EDIT1: Duty of care does change depending on both distance and time of delay: https://www.caa.co.uk/passengers/resolving-travel-problems/delays-and-cancellations/delays/

EDIT2: Well, apparently if the delay is between 3 and 4 hours, compensation is halved for flights over 3500km.

Thanks Rui. Still interesting that with the.kids there.are potentially 3 seats due for even half the compo. So definitely worth checking the arrival time officially logged.

Unfortunately many routes have.quite a lot of ‘fat’ in their scheduling. So it may translate very often that a delay of even 1 or 2 hours can be caught up on, on a single direct flight, and yet the plane still arrive ‘on time’. This one’s definitely worth checking though.

[Lady London]

Yes. Arrival time is when the door opens AND a ramp or stairs must also be accessible. If they’re still pfaffing around positioning a ramp or latching staira that have come on wheels or lowering the plane’s own stairway, then even if the door is open until ramp or stairs are made available for the first passenger to step onto to exit : until that point no the aircraft has not landed.

Beware particularly of any trumpets on Ryanair or any cabin announcements of “Welcome to x [destination] just after the wheels touch the ground or whilst taxiing. Taxiing can easily be 15 minutes before your aircraft is even at the stand. Then if late, there’s often a long wait for stairs to arrive or ramp be linked, then 2 knocks and the front door is opened! Or opened and they’re still pfaffing about with ramp or stairs.

Watch your watch because you’ve landed when passengers arw allowed to exit through the open door onto the ramp or stairs.