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BA delay excuse
My wife had her first flight out of LGW cancelled and her second delayed on 31May. The excuse for rejecting her claim for compensation came from a BA Social Media Executive. Blah blah blah “the heavy snowfall and low visibility meant we had to reduce a number of our flights and some runways were completely closed”. Alternative facts seem popular these days. Can’t even be bothered to press the summer excuse tab. Next excuse was a little fog and a rumble of thunder somewhere. |
Ask them which runways, specifically, they are referring to. If none is LGW, or her destination, or the only possible alternate (unlikely to be only one possible alternate in Europe), the excuse falls flat on its face. You can always check what they tell you for truth. If they become obstructive, file an action for the compensation you think you are due online using the Small Claims procedure. It's not expensive. If they do provide the information and it does not support their excuse, file the claim. But do study the regulation first, in detail, to make sure you have a valid case. You could check out Martin Lewis' advice.
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Just remember that all airlines will reject your first claim in the hope that, as a large majority do, go away. You have to press on. It's true that those of us with inside information can have an advantage. I had that experience when Eurowings cancelled a flight on me several years ago. They pretended that the aircraft had gone tech (at its base - our dep point) for unforeseen reasons just before departure. I proved to them that it had gone tech 6 hours prior to our ETD and that they had had plenty of time to come up with an alternative arrangement. They coughed up without further argument.
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Heavy snowfall on 31st May?
Where was she travelling to/from that had heavy snowfall that late in the year, I can't think of any LGW BA destination that would still have winter weather by then? Even in the Southern Hemisphere, they only fly to CPT and I don't recall there being heavy snow there. |
I experienced a three hour delay on Easyjet PMO-LGW on 31st May. The reason was given as severe weather forecast around the South East UK. I don’t think heavy snowfall was mentioned. BA flight to LHR came in and departed on time from the gate next to ours. |
Quite often you get different airlines flying to the same destination at around a similar time. If it is a weather related excuse, then all the airlines will be suffering the same thing.
If you are delayed and others are not, a photograph of the departure board showing the current state of affairs should help no end if the airline tries to avoid paying. |
Originally Posted by Saintsman
(Post 10175685)
. If it is a weather related excuse, then all the airlines will be suffering the same thing.
. It doesn’t cater for different operational limits across companies caused perhaps by differing equipment and perhaps differing operational policies ( I’m thinking of the likes of differing crosswind limits, differing equipment fits, all weather Ops trained vs. not all weather Ops trained, leading to differing takeoff and approach minima, that sort of thing) |
Thanks old,notbold,I'm bugging them now through the Martin Lewis link as well as the BA system. What really annoys is the obvious CBA attitude of any old rubbish will do as a response. Snow in May! It is now 25 years since I retired from the game. We would go out of our way in BCal and then BA to retain customer loyalty. BA seem to have joined the race to the bottom. The flight was the 1500 to Nice, cancelled at 0830. Rebooked on the 1845 which was about an hour late. I'm told by current flight deck that they have no slack in either crews or aircraft so the most minor hiccup will cause major cock ups. Is there any way of accessing historical metars and tafs for LGW and LHR? |
As an aside, can anyone tell us what on earth a "Social Media Executive" (see Post #1) is and does in BA? And in particular, why he or she is dealing with a claim for compensation?
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Hope you get the situation resolved. For the sake of balance I just claimed from BA for a delayed long haul (5 hours), whole thing was settled and paid in full within 48 hours! Well done BA.race to the top in my case!
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1. Staying the obvious the “ snow” excuse at LHR/LGW sounds highly unlikely. I don’t think you need historical METARS, but you could probably dig up weather records off the likes of the weather underground or wunderground website. 2. Yes BA are short of pilots..but the solution has generally been to roster those at work through the roof, in terms of hours, rather than widespread cancellations. however FWIW I’ll chuck this into the mix... 3. Marseille ATC (not the airprort, the whole centre) have been and are still engaged in a long running on/off dispute which has led to flight cancellations to destinations in south east France and northern Italy over the last few weeks. |
Today's date
French air traffic control 'causes third of Europe's flight delays' This is from a French parliamentary report! Strikes by controllers and outages caused by antiquated equipment have been blamed for the disruption to aviation, the senate’s finance committee said. Vincent Capo-Canellas, a centrist senator and the report’s author, said: “Our country is responsible for 33% of the delays due to air traffic control in Europe.” He said the situation was unlikely to improve when France’s 4,000 ATC staff were facing increases in air traffic: there were 3.1m flights last year in Europe, 4% more than in the previous year and 8.6% more than in 2015. Capo-Canelas added: “We are a long way behind our [European] neighbours. The control equipment is antiquated.” |
If I recall events correctly Marseille ATC were on strike weekend 26/27 May.I struggled to get into a shorthaul flight on the 28th because flights to my (French) destination had been reduced and there was a bit of a recovery operation going on. I’m not sure if the ATCers kicked off again with action early the following weekend but I know the action (or even threat of it) has led to flights either being cancelled, combined, or subject to very long slot delays. TBH it’s a slightly more credible explanation than snow in London on May 31.I’d be pretty upset if I was the CEO and one of my employees had seriously offered that as an excuse.....then again I’m not the CEO..... |
Originally Posted by old,not bold
(Post 10175999)
As an aside, can anyone tell us what on earth a "Social Media Executive" (see Post #1) is and does in BA? And in particular, why he or she is dealing with a claim for compensation?
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The Social Media Executive replied to the claim on BA’s claim system. |
Originally Posted by Quietplease
(Post 10175952)
Is there any way of accessing historical metars and tafs for LGW and LHR?
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Originally Posted by old,not bold
(Post 10175999)
As an aside, can anyone tell us what on earth a "Social Media Executive" (see Post #1) is and does in BA? And in particular, why he or she is dealing with a claim for compensation?
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Social Media Executive = ordinary help-desk operative that has drawn the short straw and tasked to deal with the emails, facebook, twitter and online claims/complaints, rather than answer the phones to those of us that have been in the queue for 30 mins trying to log our dissatisfaction.
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Two Irishmen sat to complain about the French ATC, with a useful suggestion (which may well have been raised before) about the air space over France. Slightly different tone from each of them ...
The Independent |
[QUOTE=MoateAir; rather than answer the phones to those of us that have been in the queue for 30 mins trying to log our dissatisfaction.[/QUOTE] 30 minutes ..... you were lucky! Looking at my phone bill I appear to have spent 64 minutes and 55 seconds on one of my recent calls to easyJet Customer Service (the call centre appears to be in Cape Town) in regard to a claim. To be fair to easyJet all their call centre operatives were extremely polite and they eventually agreed to pay me the £760 compo claim in full, but it has taken over three months. |
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