Rerouted to different airport – comp?

[Amaranth]

Hi all

Looking for some advice as to what I can reasonably push for in this situation (and whether it’s worth pushing at all). I’m currently on a coach from Florence to Bologna, having meant to be on BA525 from FLR – LHR. It’s apparently too windy to take off with a full payload of passengers so around 40 pax are being diverted to BA541 from Bologna or another flight from Pisa. BA525 will still be taking off for LHR with the rest of the non-diverted passengers onboard.

We’ve been given a form to claim either £250 cash or £350 travel credit in compensation and hopefully should only be around an hour-ish delayed into LHR, so all in all seems like a pretty decent return for the inconvenience.

I’m a silver member of BAEC and just wondering if it would be pushing my luck to ask for an Avios amount to compensate me for being unable to use my silver benefits. We are travelling in Euro Traveller and specifically booked the emergency exit seats for additional legroom (my partner is very tall) which we now don’t have, we wont be able to use the lounge etc. I also wonder if they should be prioritising customers with status to not be diverted (I obviously don’t know how many pax with status are on the flight but I can’t imagine it is packed full of golds).

Essentially, would you bother pushing for additional Avios in this situation (and what do you think you could expect to receive) or would you just take the cash / travel credit and forget about it?

[Amaranth]

Situation has now got somewhat worse… arrived in Bologna to find that nobody has called ahead from Florence to tell them 40 people were arriving. Now being told even though we are ticketed they are not holding the flight, the next one does not leave until tonight and there are only 15 seats on that plane.

Absolutely shambolic. What are EU261 rights in this scenario? Presumably hotels, meals etc. will have to be paid for with a new flight to London in the morning…?

[SamG]

I could have told BA this was going to happen when they scheduled an A320 into Florence….

Yes duty of care until you’re back is payable. I imagine they’ll argue weather for any compo

I’d do a separate complaint about the experience and you might get a few Avios

[JDB]

Oh dear, it does sound rather chaotic. BA’s initial proposal of compensation seemed remarkably generous when they could have (and still might) cite weather to avoid paying compensation, but as @SamG says whatever the circumstances, BA is liable for reasonably incurred food and accommodation costs while you are delayed.

[Amaranth]

Thanks a lot everyone. After a lot of arguing with the check-in desk and 40 people basically being told “this isn’t our problem”, they managed to get through to someone at BA to hold the flight and we’ve all just got on.

But this has been absolutely shambolic from BA. No prior warning of the diversion, no one phoning ahead to Bologna, no one organising to hold the flight at Bologna (just frustrated passengers repeatedly asking check-in staff to get through to somebody). We’ll be less than 3 hours delayed into London (just about) but I have a lot of opinions to share with BA about this tomorrow.

Anyone know if under these circumstances I can do better than the £250 cash offered just for the diversion? In hindsight, the diversion was the least of the issues…

[SamG]

If your total delay home is less than 3hrs then 250 cash seems pretty generous, it’s more than you’re due for IDB I believe. In comparison if your flight out of FLR was delayed that long you’d get nothing

Of course you can write in and I imagine they’ll throw some Avios your way too but I wouldn’t expect too much more

[BA Flyer IHG Stayer]

Amaranth wrote:

We’ve been given a form to claim either £250 cash or £350 travel credit in compensation and hopefully should only be around an hour-ish delayed into LHR, so all in all seems like a pretty decent return for the inconvenience.

is that £250 or €250 ?

If € then thats the denied bording compo under EU261.

Any compo for delay is in separate.

[shanghaiblue]

The Florence flight had to stop off in Pisa and is due to arrive at Heathrow 5 mins before the Bologna flight, so would probably take the €250 🙂