How do British Airways handle flight cancellations? And what rights do consumers have? Here’s all you need to know
I received a text message from British Airways at 12:55pm. They’ve cancelled our flight from Glasgow to Heathrow which is at 7.35pm later that day.
British Airways did reschedule our flight for 9.35am for the next morning. From Edinburgh.
Nightmare.
This happened on a Sunday when we had work the next day. Our cat sitter had already posted our house keys through the letter box so we had to be back at the house that night.
There were no more flights going to London that night either – there was heavy fog. Luckily we hadn’t left for the airport yet and were still in Glasgow city centre, frantically checking other modes of transport to get us back to London.
So we had to take a 5 hour and 50 minute train from Glasgow to London, instead of our 1 hour 15 minute flight.
To make matters worse, we had to spend £140 on two last minute train tickets.
We managed to get back to the house much later than scheduled fortunately. This was the first time my flight has been cancelled before and definitely would not want to go through it again!
British Airways have offered to refund the cancelled flights, but it’s been two weeks and they still haven’t confirmed the amount or sent the refund either.
I’m hoping it’ll cover some of the costs of the train tickets, but I’m not holding my breath!
How to claim compensation when an airline cancelled a flight
Flight cancellations happen all of the time unfortunately. Just searching Google News for flight cancellations shows several recent stories of staff shortages, strikes and unseasonally bad weather causing chaos up and down the country.
So it’s good to know there are sites such as AirHelp which makes finding out if you’re eligible for compensation super easy. For free.
All you have to provide is your flight details and dates, it literally takes a minute and let’s you know instantly if you can make a claim or not.
You can find full details of for compensation here, but here’s a short guide to all you need too know.
If airlines cancel a flight, they need to provide:
- A reasonable amount of food and drink
- A means for you to communicate
- Accommodation, if you are re-routed the next day
- Transport to and from the accommodation
Circumstances where you won’t receive compensation
Unfortunately the following circumstances will unlikely see compensation:
- extreme weather
- airport or air traffic control employee strikes
- other ‘extraordinary circumstances’ are not eligible for compensation.
How much compensation can you expect to receive?
If you received less than 14 days’ notice of the cancellation, you are generally due compensation. Distance due to be traveled affects the amount of compensation you can expect:
- £220 / €250 for all flights of 1,500km or less (e.g. Glasgow to Amsterdam);
- £350 / €400 for all flights between 1,500km and 3,500km (e.g. Glasgow to Marrakech);
- £520 / €600 for all other flights (e.g. London to New York).
