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Hi all
So we travelled from Tokyo to Dublin via Heathrow. The initial flight to Heathrow was delayed leaving, I think due to thunderstorms in Heathrow on 13 June delaying it getting to Tokyo.
We got to Heathrow, ground staff met us and give us boarding pass for the Dublin flight. We missed the connection due to a security guard miscalculating the 35 min security rule they have for connections.
We missed that flight – 5.30pm to Dublin. No other flights, so told to book hotel and earliest flight next day (14 June) is London City to Dublin. We get to airport next morning for 7.30am, told it’s cancelled. Then rebooked onto Aer Lingus flight at 9.50am from Heathrow. They give taxi a voucher to get us there.
Are we entitled to anything above the accommodation/food costs?
No one can answer as you’ve not mentioned what airline flew the long haul leg and if same airline ticketed you.
261 compensation only kicks in for flights FROM the UK and EU (might be EEA plus Switzerland actually; I forget) and flights TO the UK and EU operated by UK and EU airlines.
All on a British Airways ticket. All British Airways flights return, except the connection they rebooked us on coming back (Aer Lingus).
You may be entitled to compensation for the cancelled flight from LCY unless that was cancelled due to weather.
I’d put in a claim on the BA website. If there are no extraordinary circumstances BA will pay out.
And OP is entitled to reimbursement of costs for accommodation, food expenses (3 meals per 24hrs) and communication costs regardless of the reason for cancellation/delay which was also the OP’s question.
So I finally received the response from BA. They’ve agreed to pay expenses. They’ve denied the EU compensation on the following basis:
“Unfortunately, your claim for EU compensation been refused because BA0008 on 14 June wasn’t delayed for long enough due to payable reasons to cause a missed connection. For EU compensation to be payable in this scenario, we would have needed to be responsible for at least 71 minutes of the delay. I’m afraid we were only responsible for 17 minutes of the overall delay, as per our investigation.”
Our final destination on the same ticket with BA was Dublin (Tokyo-Heathrow-Dublin). We got rebooked once we missed the original connection to another BA flight the following morning. This was cancelled and we were rebooked onto another flight (Aer Lingus). We arrived at the destination at 11:30am on 15 June. Original arrival was to be 7.30pm on 14 June.
Are BA fobbing me off or should I go back and request they look again?
@pjrea – I think it is very unlikely BA will change its position if you go back to them unless you can challenge the story with some specific evidence to suggest its version of events is inaccurate. You then need to decide whether to escalate to CEDR to whom BA would need to provide evidence of the breakdown of the delay in order to win on the basis of ‘extraordinary circumstances’. You don’t want to take the matter to MCOL as you will incur fees and BA has a complete defence if what they say is accepted. In either scenario, BA could cave early on if its story is a bit flaky.
I think the delay leaving Tokyo was most likely weather related, as there had been thunderstorms in the UK the day before, where the plane was arriving from. Was just confused as BA didn’t explicitly say exceptional circumstances in their response, but presume that’s the other 54 minutes they’re referring to in the 71 minutes they bring up.
My confusion lies in whether the rebooked flight being cancelled on the morning of the 15th resets the delay aspect, as it further delayed our arrival at the final destination?
I would not pursue it if the delay in departing Tokyo was due to weather.
That said I would still put in a claim for the cancelled LCY-DUB flight as I suggested on 3 July.
That is of course also dependent on the reason BA cancelled that service.
Have BA reimbursed the hotel and costs of getting to LCY? You’re entitled to be paid for those regardless of the delay compensation not paying.
BA covered the following expenses:
Hotel
Transport between airport and hotel
Hotel to airport
Food
Travel home from airportSo overall satisfied with them covering expenses. I did mention to them about the cancelled flight (the rescheduled connection) in the original complaint as you suggested AJA but they only referred to the Tokyo to Heathrow flight in their response, not the cancelled one.
@pjrea – it isn’t clear whether you could make a successful claim for the cancelled LCY-DUB flight as although new UK261 rights theoretically attach to a new rerouting flight, it’s complicated as it is still theoretically part of a single journey Tokyo to Dublin (and incidentally therefore under EC261 rather than UK261) and you can’t double dip/mix n’ match. It would have potentially been easier with two carriers. In any event, you need to decide whether you are going to pursue the Tokyo compensation as you wouldn’t want to be making the claims concurrently.
So BA came back with the following regards the cancelled flight:
Your claim for EU compensation has been refused because BA8754 on 15 June was cancelled due to airspace restrictions. We take all reasonable measures to avoid disruption to a flight and we always consider if there are any other alternative solutions before we make a decision. The cancellation was out of our control and caused unforeseen disruption to our schedule.
I think the delay to the Tokyo flight is very unlikely to allow compensation, but you said “We missed the connection due to a security guard miscalculating the 35 min security rule they have for connections.”
What happened there, and who was the security guard? If a BA employee stopped you getting on a flight you could have made, then that would be likely to put BA on the hook for compensation.
Did they tell you why the flight was cancelled in LCY? If they said something different there to what BA are saying now then it might be worth pursuing.
Otherwise you could have a look at the EU261 thread on Flyertalk or the “why was my flight cancelled” thread to see if anyone has mentioned it.The person who rebooked us onto the London City flight, I’m not sure they were a BA staff member but I presume Heathrow ground staff wouldn’t have the option to rebook BA flights? It ended up being the same person who stopped us going through Border Control for the connection, that rebooked our flight.
The BA desk at London City were surprised by the cancellation and didn’t give a reason. They just discussed amongst themselves they were surprised it had been cancelled and the rest of the flights that day were fully booked from London City, hence why we got rebooked on an Aer Lingus flight from Heathrow.
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