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After arriving an hour early from Dubai our Manchester flight has now been cancelled along with lots of others. Website is giving us an alternative of 7:55am flight tomorrow but we have a 6 month old with us with special milk we don’t have.
What are our rights in this scenario and what can we ask BA to do for us? Taxi back to Manchester tonight?After arriving an hour early from Dubai our Manchester flight has now been cancelled along with lots of others. Website is giving us an alternative of 7:55am flight tomorrow but we have a 6 month old with us with special milk we don’t have.
What are our rights in this scenario and what can we ask BA to do for us? Taxi back to Manchester tonight?BA is obliged to cover the cost of a hotel and food for your. Strictly speaking, providing or paying for that covers their obligations given that they have offered you rerouting at the earliest opportunity as there are no further flights this evening. It may be difficult, given the number of cancelled flights and stranded passengers to contact BA on the telephone or ideally at the airport to explain your situation and that you need to get home tonight for your baby’s health. If they refuse or you can show you made reasonable efforts to get hold of someone, you probably need to make your own transport arrangements and then claim from BA who won’t necessarily pay up that easily, particularly if the taxi is very expensive vs public transport, even if that may be impractical.
I’m in T5 South Lounge in the queue waiting to speak to someone at customer service. We are travelling as a family of 5 including our 6 month old, not sure on the current hotel situation but I’m sure they will be getting full by the looks of the cancelled flights on the departures board.
I’m in T5 South Lounge in the queue waiting to speak to someone at customer service. We are travelling as a family of 5 including our 6 month old, not sure on the current hotel situation but I’m sure they will be getting full by the looks of the cancelled flights on the departures board.
If you are going for the hotel option, I’m not sure if BA will book it for you, so you may want quickly to check the options that are available so you can grab what there is.
BA won’t rebook but will reimburse you after the fact.
I appreciae it’s not ideal but I’m sure staying over night even with an early start tomorrow will be much more confortable for you and your family than being squuzed into a taxi for 3 hours.
And please in future when some one in yor party has a special need for milk or medication always pack enough in your hand luggage to last a couple of days in case of issues like this.
BA are paying for taxi at whatever cost. Just waiting for it now – £764 😳
And please in future when some one in yor party has a special need for milk or medication always pack enough in your hand luggage to last a couple of days in case of issues like this.
In hand luggage? unlikely, with liquid limits.
My advice to PaulC : make sure you get that commitment in writing. Or at least get the nane of the person making this promise.
Theew are exceptions to he liquid rules for medicines and baby milk.
We had enough for a delay but not over night and what if tomorrows got delayed. You can’t take enough for a delayed, delay. How far do you go. We already have bags and bags as it is.
£764?! When BA had to get us from MAN to LHR it was “only” £300, albeit it was 3 1/2 years ago!
Is your special milk available in powdered form? My son had milk for colicky babies but it was available in powder so we just used to pack loads of that as we never went anywhere where we wouldn’t be able to get boiled or bottled water to make it up with.
Anyway, hope you’re home now!
Almost all pharmacies will sell any special milk, and in an emergency they will dispense a small amount of prescription milk if you can prove your baby is on it. BA is obliged to provide food in a disruption. The cost of a reasonable quantity of necessary special milk the baby is on would seem to be covered, so BA should pay the (unreasonably high) costs of special milk.
I hope you have it in writing BA will pay for that taxi; the CAA have made it quite clear they dont expect airlines to go to extraordinary lengths to reroute you following disruption (which is a category a £764 taxi would fall in to in my mind).
£764! Cripes. I’m tempted to de-ice the car and pop down to LHR and offer my services. I’d drive someone for that myself, probably get the same on way back 😅
😂
In all seriousness though, if you’re expecting to send that bill to BA and get paid I’d say you’re going to have a fight on your hands. Flight the next morning and a hotel for the night isn’t at all unreasonable
My daughter has special milk and I always carry plenty as a pharmacy likely doesn’t have any in stock to dispense even in an emergency. No restrictions on baby food in liquid or powder form. I do sympathise on the number of bag situation though!!
In our case BA seemed to have an account with the taxi firm, we certainly weren’t asked to pay for it and claim it back. We were connecting to a long haul, though, so maybe they decided it was cheaper than shelling out EU261 x 3 of us (and indeed every other passenger on the plane, which had suffered a technical fault).
I’m yet to chase the money but to shed a little more light on the situation, his milk is only available in liquid form in the UK, we managed to buy powder in Dubai over the counter but it was all in checked bags. We had 2-3 days worth of liquid also in the checked bags. Medication included one that needed to be in a fridge and our gel ice packs were already softening up. He also requires oxygen which BA provided on the long haul and we had 2x POC machines. He is NG tube fed every 4hours which timing with flights isn’t easy. Although checked in together as a family of 4 adults and an infant we were on two separate bookings using two 2-4-1 vouchers which also meant our alternative flight they originally offered us were different times which would of messed things up with bags and cars back at Manchester airport with not enough hands or space in cars. So it was just easier to get home.
You don’t think straight when you’ve been awake since 3am (UK time) and you just want to get home with a 6month old, 7 suitcases, a car seat, a pram, 6 hand luggage cases and 2x POC machines.
We arrived home at 3:30am safe and sound. On the plus the taxi firm took AMEX which has taken me over my bonus spend amount!
Good to hear you’re home safely, it must be unspeakably stressful travelling with a baby with so many health needs. Bizarre that you can get a powdered formula in Dubai but not here!
Did you actually get BA to agree to pay for the taxi? As others have said, unless you have proof that they agreed to this, you may well have a fight on your hands. I would have expected them to sort out the fare if that was the case. Their default response is to try and deny responsibility, no matter how deserving the case!Good to hear you’re home safely, it must be unspeakably stressful travelling with a baby with so many health needs. Bizarre that you can get a powdered formula in Dubai but not here!
Did you actually get BA to agree to pay for the taxi? As others have said, unless you have proof that they agreed to this, you may well have a fight on your hands. I would have expected them to sort out the fare if that was the case. Their default response is to try and deny responsibility, no matter how deserving the case!No I asked her did I need anything in writing or if she made a note against our booked but she just assured us that BA are good and will pay whatever the cost to get us home with our baby. She spoke to her supervisor on the phone to get it authorised and that’s it in a nutshell. She was due to finish at 8pm and the person that came i and took over only had to ring the baggage hall to get our bags to the carousel for us.
I came here for help as I didn’t know what I could do but unfortunately the answers came after my situation was resolved so to speak.
In hind sight maybe it would of been better to get our bags offloaded and stay over but how much sleep would really of got having had to try get us and all the bags to a hotel, unpack the milk etc we need, pack it all back up again and get back to the airport for 6am along with 4hour feeds. Believe me it’s not easy.
Home now with the washing machine on overload.
Will ring BA later to try resolve, maybe my travel
Insurance will cover some costs too, will give them a call too.Glad you are home as travelling with a 6 months old is stressful enough let alone with medical needs.
Normally to bring a portable oxygen concentrator onboard, one would have filled out BA MEDIF (medical clearance form). Once approved, the flight booking reference would be linked to the medical clearance.
Medical clearance is of course a separate matter to your taxi cost, but perhaps worth mentioning in your claim as the handler should know any passenger meeting threshold for medical clearance by BA’s medical team indicates a degree of complexity to the passenger’s health needs.
Glad you are home as travelling with a 6 months old is stressful enough let alone with medical needs.
Normally to bring a portable oxygen concentrator onboard, one would have filled out BA MEDIF (medical clearance form). Once approved, the flight booking reference would be linked to the medical clearance.
Medical clearance is of course a separate matter to your taxi cost, but perhaps worth mentioning in your claim as the handler should know any passenger meeting threshold for medical clearance by BA’s medical team indicates a degree of complexity to the passenger’s health needs.
Yes we went through the medical clearance forms etc to get fit to fly paperwork. I think when she spotted that on the booking the penny dropped and it was at that point she decided to contact her supervisor to get permission to allow us to get a taxi home as soon as possible.
Your holiday sounds like the sort of thing you need a holiday to recover from.
With that much luggage and a poorly baby I assumed @PaulC either works out there or was/is on an extended/family visit at one end or the other!
With that much luggage and a poorly baby I assumed @PaulC either works out there or was/is on an extended/family visit at one end or the other!
I wish, haha.
No we just love shopping in the DSF every Jan.
Your holiday sounds like the sort of thing you need a holiday to recover from.
It was pretty good compared to the first 5 months of my son’s life in hospital. Been great to get away to our usual winter sun and have our first family holiday. He got his own lay down bed on the way out and we got upgraded to the Presidential Suite in Doubletree M Square.
It only went down hill when we got on our flight home and they ran out of roast chicken! That was the beginning of the last 24hrs, haha.
Just to update the outcome on this.
I have just received an email from BA to say they are happy to reimburse the full taxi amount.Just to update the outcome on this.
I have just received an email from BA to say they are happy to reimburse the full taxi amount.Glad, you deserved a good outcome.
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