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My mother and I had booked to return from Kalamata to Manchester via Heathrow 14th May with a slick 1hr 15 mins connection. The Kalamata to Heathrow flight was cancelled and the first available was two weeks later. We reluctantly accepted it and changed our outward flight (easyJet from Gatwick with hotel stay due to timings).
Today, BA have emailed to say our connecting flight Heathrow-Manchester is cancelled and have rebooked us on to the next available flight. Instead of a slick 1hr 15mins at Heathrow, it will be 3 hrs 25 mins – about the same time as a direct flight from Kalamata to Manchester, if we accept.
We have been put out twice by BA with no guarantee that we won’t be again and again.
We are travelling economy. Is there any duty of care owed by BA for the extra time we must spend in Heathrow?
Failing any duty of care, I would welcome suggestions for the best paid lounge at Heathrow T5!
All opinions welcome and appreciated.
- This topic was modified 55 years, 4 months ago by .
BA do this all the time with the MAN connections. I doubt that a wait of 3 1/2 hours will entitle you to duty of care, though BA may give you some F & B vouchers.
To be honest, 1 hour 15 mins might have been pushing it if LHR is very busy when you land (and it may be in the half term holiday with your new travel dates). You will have to go through immigration and security again and these can take a while.
In future you’d be better off doing the outbound on BA (you don’t have to clear security twice that way), and returning direct to MAN, especially if you’re flying in economy and haven’t got lounge access to slightly sweeten the extra hassle!
It depends if it crosses a mealtime. If it.does then I’d be in Gordon Ramsay’s eating a moderate meal without alcohol and claiming. You should go through yhe motions of asking for a meal voucher first nearer the time. You may not hear back ahem.
Is it defo all one ticket.through to MAN? If so how many hours later than scheduled originally, will you arrive at MAN?
I can’t remember if this delayed arrival time at your end point on the entire single-ticket journey Kalamata to Manchester gets delay compensation if the delay time for your overall ticketed journey exceeds, say, 3 hours over the landing time that was booked. It’d be worth your while googling UK equivalent of EU261 and checking.
If it’s borderline, check your watch on the day when you land, at the point the front door of the aircraft opens and the first passenger is allowed to walk onto the steps or ramp following one of those being connected to the aircraft. As that moment is your actual landing time and not when the wheels touch the ground.
Many thanks, both.
Scheduled arrival back at Manchester is now 2hrs 5 mins later than booked so I don’t expect UK261 will kick in. Hence I was asking about duty of care. If we had been travelling business then it would not be so bad. Yes, through ticket.
Recommendations for the best paid-for lounge at Heathrow T5 then?
Thanks, Tim.
I don’t think UK261 compensation would apply here because it’s more than 2 weeks before the date of travel. Re-routing rights would still apply, so if Tim could make a compelling case, he may be eligible to move to a direct flight at BA’s expense.
Do you mean your wait is now 2 hours, 5 mins? If so I wouldn’t bother with a paid lounge at LHR. You could be looking at an hour to get through immigration and security, in which case you’d only have about 30 minutes in the lounge before you’d need to board your next flight.
- This reply was modified 55 years, 4 months ago by .
NorthernLass, no the wait at T5 is now scheduled to be 3hrs 25 mins.
I have to keep my 83 year-old mother happy so need a lounge, one way or another, and, if it is paid-for, it has to be the best.
Yup 2 hrs 5 mins net delay in arrival time on that length of journey (as it’s not the shortest) gets you nothing. Anna’s right about 3hrs at Heathrow quite possibly being more protective than what you had before.
If it must be a paid lounge then there’s only Plaza Premium worth bothering with. You can get into that with 1 Amex Plat for the 2 of you. Otherwise it depends on time of the day and week if you wanted the BA main lounges but they are likely busy. B lounge likely too far there and back? As I said, I’d have been in Gordon Ramsay’s.
PS had your arrival in MAN been considerably later I am still not sure there would have been nothingvto claim. I’ve never had to look it up but am sure someone said there was something for delay and it was under duty of care part and had come about as a result of case law.
Tim and his mum are in Y so no BA lounge access. Would it be possible to change to Club Europe? It would be a much nicer experience for both of you and well worth the extra avios (if it’s an award booking). It’s a pretty miserable experience otherwise!
If no Amex Plat then can purchase on the door or ahead via Plaza Premium or Dragonpass.
Tim and his mum are in Y so no BA lounge access. Would it be possible to change to Club Europe? It would be a much nicer experience for both of you and well worth the extra avios (if it’s an award booking). It’s a pretty miserable experience otherwise!
Good idea. You could keep the cost down by only upgrading for the Lon to Man leg as lounge access depends on the flight you’re departing on not arrived on. Obvs miles upgrade likely to cost less but needs avios seat to be available on target flight. (specific Arrivals lounges are different and not relevant here.)
Anna would that mean both tickets would need to be upgraded? Got a feeling a Club Europe ticket admits just 1.
Yes, both would need CE tickets for lounge access. If there’s avios availability they could be upgraded by calling BA. A cash upgrade is also an option but I wouldn’t leave it till the day to ask about that as the LHR-MAN flights are often full.
It’s a shame Tim accepted the original change as he would have been eligible for re-routing on a direct flight to MAN under UK261 if he had refused to accept the 2 week difference in flight date.
Many thanks again Lady London and NorthernLass!
I could not upgrade a leg with Avios because we booked on the cheapest class economy.
I did some more searching and found that we could return 3 days earlier with a very tight connection in T5 – 1 hour! If the incoming flight is delayed then there will be duty of care – hotel transport, meals etc. and I will not be paying upfront for any of it. It seems the BA algorithm just moves the cancelled flight without considering changing both.
Thank you again for the helpful suggestions. Che sera, sera.
Tim – without wishing to labour the point, your inbound flight might be on time but you could struggle to get through immigration and security at LHR in time to board your connecting flight. BA won’t accept liability for long queues. They would probably transfer you to a later flight (if there is one, and with available seats, it’s a very busy route), but they wouldn’t pay for meals etc.
Have you done this route before? You will need to clear immigration at T5, along with all the people queuing in front of you (though electronic gates can speed this up, if they are working), then you have to get upstairs to security and queue again to get through, with a load of people in front of you who’ve forgotten they have liquids in their hand luggage and other shenanigans, then find your gate for your MAN connection (usually downstairs and round the corner at the early A gates). It’s a lot of messing around, especially with an elderly relative, and time consuming. Also, if you have hold luggage, there’s a very real chance it won’t arrive at MAN with you, even if you make the connection by the skin of your teeth!
- This reply was modified 55 years, 4 months ago by .
Surely Tim et all will be using the connections route which is a lot quicker than the exit and renter way.
MCT within T5 is 60 minutes. It’s more likely the luggage will be on the MAN flight before Tim even gets to the gate.
You’ve had better experiences than us then! But you still need to clear immigration and security, and these are obviously variables.
I am partially relying upon my mother’s disability to speed us through. She has wheelchair assistance which is better than fast-track as the pusher has access to the short-cut routes.
There is scheduled to be another flight LHR-MAN 85 mins later, so we should be OK if we miss the first. If it is any worse, then we are in the laps of BA.
There was a time when BA would not book flights on a through ticket with such a short connection time. I assume the inbound flight has an exaggerated flight time and will, magically, get in early, if on time.
I am accustomed to my luggage going missing with BA. Everything important will be hand luggage. The rest is fine to turn up a few days later. Nothing has ever been permanently lost and if it is, we have good insurance.
Thanks again for all the thoughts, insights and concerns!
- This reply was modified 55 years, 4 months ago by .
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