#928789 by deep_south
14 Nov 2016, 11:40
Booked via BA Holidays for a few days in Dubai with my wife; planned departure time was 21:45. Spent some relaxing time in the lounge and then boarded on time. Unfortunately there was a technical fault with one of the door sensors on the B787-9 that they couldn't sort out, so the flight was delayed until 15:30 on Monday. They held us on the plane while they sorted some things out (or so they said...)
Back through immigration - who were surprised to see us, as they hadn't been told...
Collected the bags, and off to get accommodation. Waited while the staff tapped away at computers to work out what rooms might be available, and were assigned the Renaissance. Turned out that there was already a delayed flight to the far east, so lots of the rooms has already been allocated.
Got to the Renaissance around midnight; into a very noisy room with air con rumbling away. Didn't sleep well; back on the coach at 12:00 to T5, back into the lounge, and then boarded the same plane again. Same flight crew, but the cabin crew had been pulled of standby.
And then the great catering fiasco began; none had been loaded. So we waited, and waited. And then one of the trucks broke down and blocked the economy galley. It eventually got moved; the catering was finally all on board, and we eventually departed well over an hour later than planned.
We all got the standard "CAA delay leaflet" which simply says "You may be entitled to a fixed sum in compensation if the cause of the delay or cancellation was within the airline's control" and no info on what EC 261 actually covers, or mention of EC 261 at all.

So we landed in DXB at around 3:30am, after what was a good flight. But we lost the first day of our short holiday due to this. EC 261 claim is now filed with BA and I guess EUR1200 will help a little.

But the fiasco around the lack of catering was a very poor show indeed.
#928839 by gumshoe
14 Nov 2016, 22:07
I disagree. EC261/2004 is weighted very much in favour of the consumer and thanks to various rulings over the years there are now very few get-outs for the airlines. If your flight's delayed by 4 hours - inconvenient but probably no worse than that for most people - it's entirely possible to earn more in compensation than the original cost of the ticket. And even where compensation isn't due - because of weather for example - the airlines have a duty of care to feed and accommodate you. Of course there are cases where no amount of compensation is enough - a missed wedding or funeral for example - but compared to the rest of the world, where you're essentially at the mercy of the airline when things go wrong - we're pretty well off.

What's bad is that many airlines do their utmost to wriggle out of paying out but persistence often pays off and the moneyclaimonline service makes it pretty simple to get what's due if it comes to it.
#928897 by deep_south
15 Nov 2016, 18:28
I agree with gumshoe; this was a short 6 day break which was my wife's "retirement holiday" that she was very much looking forward to; not in the same league as missing a wedding or a funeral, but much more important than one of my business trips for example. We had chosen (and paid for) Club World as part of that "treat". it was a shame the VS flight times were less convenient, but problems can occurr; to me the important thing is how they are dealt with. Instead of sleeping on the plane and arriving at the hotel mid morning to have the first day to relax and orient ourselves, we arrived at the hotel at 05:00 - knackered as the departure time of 17:30 didn't really suggest sleeping time!

And BA didn't handle this very well at all. As far as I am concerned, this is a clear cut delay caused by BA - if they didn't have a spare plane at their home base that they could switch onto...

So I am looking forward to our EUR1200 - it will pay for a nice break somwhere - but not with BA! I work for a Gernman company, and our travel agent automatically would suggest BA first, but for the last couple of months it is now defaulting to LH; there are enough flights to FRA that the schedule doesn't really make a differenmce.
#929641 by deep_south
01 Dec 2016, 15:17
And just to close this down; I filled in the web form for the EC/261 compensation on our return on the 14th. I had no response except for the automated acknowledgement, so I rang the gold line yesterday (it was my last day of Gold) and the nice chap there apologised, couldn't explain why nothing had happened, but arranged the €1200 payment to go into my bank account and should be there in a couple of days.
There was no question about BA not paying this - it was after all a straightforward case.
Virgin Atlantic

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