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In July we had a BA flight NCL-LHR-USA. Got to NCL airport 1hr 40 mins before departure. We were flying Business class so were getting checked in within 5 mins of getting there. The Swissport employee took around 15 mins trying to check us in before asking his colleague to assist him. She was too busy as there were only 2 people checking in the Economy cabin so asked him to call BA support desk. I asked him what was the matter and he said it was giving him an error.
He went on to call BA support desk and waited 25-30 mins for someone to answer the call. He spoke to the agent for 5 mins explaining what the issue was and she seemed to have fixed/explained it as he hung up with an idea of what he was doing. This was followed by another 10 mins of trying to check us in. After failing to do so he went to his back office to call a manager. 5 mins later he came back empty handed and proceeded to try and check us in again.
It was now 40 mins before departure and his manager came down and asked him to go assist with the boarding process. He told his colleague that he could not check us in and passed on the passports/tickets to her. There were 4-5 people ahead of us in her queue so we patiently waited in the other queue.
When it came to our turn she asked us what the issue was and despite asking the earlier agent 7-8 times all we got from him was that he could not check us in. She must have spent 1 minute on the first booking and checked in pax 1. When she went to work on the second booking the flight closed.
We were rebooked on the next days flight and given no explanation. Ended up loosing the first nights hotel and having to move flights for day 3 to day 4.
Filed a BA complaint about this and got a reference number. Despite 5 reminders we have not heard from them at all.
When I posted this in July on the daily chat thread I was advised to approach them for UK261. They haven’t even acknowledged my initial complaint nor do they reply back when I ask them for an update.
In my opinion the agent was clearly inexperienced. He seemed new at the job.
What should I do next?
I remember you posting this story. I was incensed on your behalf.
If no response to a 261 claim, progress to a letter before action giving them a fixed time period to react. After that proceed to a Money Claim Online. There’s CEDR as an arbitration option too, and I’m not sure if that’s more helpful in your case as there’s going to be an element of “He said/She said” to your case – unless you filmed it all? If you do a forum search there’s loads of helpful advice on both. I’m no expert having only had to MCOL BA once.
There shouldn’t be any he said/she said. While Denied Boarding in this context isn’t covered in the text of Article 4, the Interpretative Guidelines make it clear that the Article does not relate exclusively to overbooking as the text might imply. The fact is that you presented yourselves at the airport within the required time limits but that BA either had not properly ticketed your booking or had made some other error which cannot be attributed to the passenger.
You should be entitled to compensation of £520 each plus any accommodation, food or extra transport costs you incurred.
I would follow the advice above and write to the BA Legal department (ideally by post, recorded or special delivery) giving them fourteen clear days to respond, failing which you can go to CEDR which may be a bit slow, but in a simple case like this should have a positive outcome. Just make your submissions reasonably brief and factual (eg avoid saying the agent was inexperienced as it doesn’t change anything and annoys people). The reality is that Swissport only has access to limited information/functionality from BA and they can’t check you in without ‘payment’ in the form of your electronic coupon and that’s something that usually only BA can fix.
The “He said/She said” relates to Swissport closing ranks and claiming the passenger failed to arrive within good time. Skullduggery I know but still a possibility. The OP hasn’t said whether any BA coding was included on the rebooking; to BA it might’ve looked like discretionary benevolence on the part of their handling agent
If it makes any difference I was on a Cathay ticket and my partner was on a AA ticket.
Thanks for the help. I will get the letter in the post this week and keep you posted.
The “He said/She said” relates to Swissport closing ranks and claiming the passenger failed to arrive within good time. Skullduggery I know but still a possibility.
Easily rebuffed both by the call to BA and by any Google/Apple GPS timeline, car park ticket, etc. And of course IT logs of all the failed check-in attempts. Good luck!
Sent the LBA and gave them 14 days to reply. It’s now been 21 without any acknowledgement from them. Would be grateful for any advice as to what I should do next.
BTW very disappointed with BA. No replies to my complaint or numerous follow up’s to it over months and now nothing to the LBA. My friend had a situation with his luggage and they replied to his customer care emails within a few days.
Personally, I’d raise a case with CEDR. I had to do this recently as 3 months had passed with BA and no response. CEDR took a couple of weeks to accept/decline (which they accepted) and messaged to say it could take up to 90 days to reach a conclusion.
However, call it co-incidence or a nudge from CEDR, BA emailed a few days later saying I was due compensation.
Sent the LBA and gave them 14 days to reply. It’s now been 21 without any acknowledgement from them. Would be grateful for any advice as to what I should do next.
BTW very disappointed with BA. No replies to my complaint or numerous follow up’s to it over months and now nothing to the LBA. My friend had a situation with his luggage and they replied to his customer care emails within a few days.
You do what you said you would do in the LBA and start an MCOL case!
Sent the LBA and gave them 14 days to reply. It’s now been 21 without any acknowledgement from them. Would be grateful for any advice as to what I should do next.
BTW very disappointed with BA. No replies to my complaint or numerous follow up’s to it over months and now nothing to the LBA. My friend had a situation with his luggage and they replied to his customer care emails within a few days.
This is disappointing. You have two options – to escalate to CEDR or MCOL. My inclination is to take this one to MCOL because I think there is a risk that BA might be able to bamboozle CEDR with some story that it wasn’t their fault. MCOL requires payment of a fee that you will recover when you win which is highly probable. Compared to CEDR it does require you to set out your case in a more formal, legalistic manner. The principle is that BA’s agents denied you boarding owing to an administrative failure for which you bear no responsibility. It’s entirely on BA.
Think I will go down the MCOL route. Thanks all.
Quick question – It was me and my wife and we were on separate bookings (one issued by Cathay and one AA) . Can we do the MCOL together or would that be 2 individual claims?
Anyone? Thank you in advance.
Anyone? Thank you in advance.
You would need to make two claims, but now you have told us that BA wasn’t responsible for ticketing either booking, the whole story rather falls apart. There is little point and a potential cost in issuing MCOL until there is a specific and accurate claim and you have identified the responsible party.
If you book a non-BA flight via ba.com, whose responsibility is it to ensure it’s properly ticketed?
If you book a non-BA flight via ba.com, whose responsibility is it to ensure it’s properly ticketed?
It will almost always be the responsibility of BA which then becomes the ticketing and contracting carrier. If you find yourself on a US domestic with AA, that doesn’t really offer much help.
The problem the OP has here is that there is no evidence as to which airline(s) made an error. It seems somewhat improbably that both AA and CX failed correctly to ticket the booking, but that’s not going to be enough to win an MCOL case and if the responsibility did lie with AA and/or CX, it’s not even a 261 claim. BA was the operating carrier but that in itself may not assist.
I suspect that there was a time change to the NCL -LHR leg at some point, which would have required both CX and AA to reconf the ticket, maybe if the op could advise if there had been any time changes or amendments.
BA is the operating carrier here – the ticketing agents are respectively AA and CX and any ticketing or reticketing failures will lie with them (unless BA did something within 24 hours when taking the tickets under ‘carrier’ or airport control which is unlikely).
Quick question – It was me and my wife and we were on separate bookings (one issued by Cathay and one AA) . Can we do the MCOL together or would that be 2 individual claims?
Did you do this via a travel agent?
Otherwise if you’re saying 1 ticket was issued by AA and one issued by CX, I cannot see how both airlines would have made the same ticketing error.
Who, exactly, is the payment receipt documrnt issued by, for each of your tickets?
Quick question – It was me and my wife and we were on separate bookings (one issued by Cathay and one AA) . Can we do the MCOL together or would that be 2 individual claims?
Did you do this via a travel agent?
Otherwise if you’re saying 1 ticket was issued by AA and one issued by CX, I cannot see how both airlines would have made the same ticketing error.
Who, exactly, is the payment receipt documrnt issued by, for each of your tickets?
These are likely to be award tickets hence the different agents
Read my post above this one
Yes but very strange 2 ticketing airlines should both make the same error in ticketing.
Whereas a single travel sgent might have had to use 2 separate codeshares (BA and CX) on the outward flight from NCL in order to get seats, as perhaps the codeshares only had 1 seat left each on that flight. In that case a single agent could have ticketed both.
As compared to us hearing that CX, sn airline based in Hong Kong, and AA, an airline based in the USA, each made an error in ticketing the flight of 1 of the passengers. Who wouldn’t have been on the same booking, if 1 passenger’s ticket ticketed by AA and 1 passenger’s ticket ticketed by CX. Each ticket on a different airline’s “paper”, maybe, if the ticketing was done by a travel agent.
Or your theory, that a reconfirmation from the passenger had been needed in the case of a flight chsnge. Which would require more looking into, but the checkin sgent shoukd have been able to see this and say it still needed reticketing. Or maybe passenger was not asked to reconfirm bybBA nor CX, nir AA, nor travel agent…. hichever. So couldvstill be BA faukt deoending what’s in systems.
Hence my question.
So @MCO Who, exactly, is the payment receipt documrnt issued by, for each of your tickets?
Both were issued maybe 7-8 days before the flight. One was from my AA Advantage account and the other was from my CX FF account. No schedule charges happened in those 7 days.
So @MCO Who, exactly, is the payment receipt documrnt issued by, for each of your tickets?
One was issued with AA eticket numbers and the other with CX eticket numbers.
Surely if there was a problem with one ticket then he could have checked the other pax in. I agree with the above that problems with 2 different etickets is highly unlikely. Not even the same surname as my partner has a different one to mine.
So you flew on BA but booked the tickets separately via the AA and CX websites? I think this is what has caused some confusion! My feeling is that because you were flying from the UK, 261 would apply in respect of denied boarding/delay but I’m wondering if your claim has completely confused BA and they don’t know how to respond! Also you probably need 2 separate claims.
I’m really struggling with AA and CX both, separately, not having issued valid tickets according to BA, or at least according to BA’s checkin agent.
I’m coming back to BA incompetence at checkin in Newcastle. Or just possibly BA systems having boo boo’ed in releasing codeshare seats to booking systems that actually did not have a seat able to be ticketed against the reservation under each of tbe AA and CX codeshares.
Was the first flight on 1 ticket an AA flight code and the first flight on the other ticket a CX code?
Did any othet flight on either ticket get any comnent about am issur at checkin? If not I’m coming back to it being BA’s fault.
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