'BA cancelled my flight, made me travel to another airport, and now won't refund my rail fare'

Karine Pengelley writes

On Jan 5, my family of six arrived in good time at Innsbruck for our return flight to Heathrow with British Airways due to depart at 14.10. The BA check-in counters were unmanned. An electronic notice above them said: Flight cancelled, await announcement.

By chance there was a kind representative for a tour operator whose clients were also due to take our flight. She handed us a leaflet she had been given apologising for the cancellation. It suggested we make our way to the BA Sales and Reservations desk for help. We could find no such desk at Innsbruck airport.

Finally I received a text message from BA officially informing me of the cancellation. It said we were rebooked on a flight from Munich the following evening. I managed to get through to BA’s customer services, which said the only alternative was to accept a refund.

The six of us bought train tickets to Munich, found an airport hotel and tried to deal with the dislocation as economically as possible. On our return I claimed €222 (￡190) for the train, €35 for taxis, €256 for the hotel, €138 for meals and €65 for a taxi home as the flight arrived very late; a total of €716. I have been repaid a random ￡432.03.

I have managed to speak to someone in Customer Services who said BA would not be paying for the train journey and had fulfilled its contract to get us back from Austria.

Gill Charlton, consumer correspondent, replies

Airlines are contracted to transport passengers between the airports named on their tickets. This duty is backed up by Section 8 of EU Regulation 261/2004, which says that where the airline offers re-routing following a cancelled flight, it is “recommended good practice” that this should be “offered at no additional cost to the passenger even where the passengers are re-routed with another carrier or on a different transport mode”.

Earlier this year, BA introduced a new Help page on its website: ba.com/helpme, which does provide useful information on rebooking and refund options for customers whose flights are delayed or cancelled, including a list of local telephone numbers for its offices worldwide. Under the heading “What you can’t claim expenses for” it says: “If you choose to travel from a different departure point or to a different destination than your original booking, we won’t cover any expenses for travel between the two points, including car rental and parking”.

But you were not given a choice. BA’s website booking manager automatically rebooked you on to a flight from Munich. When you telephoned the airline to find out if there was a choice, it would not let you fly on Austrian Airlines, which was continuing to take off from Innsbruck that day.

Offering a refund is not giving the passenger a proper choice as defined by the Regulation. Passengers must always be offered re-routing “under comparable transport conditions”.

BA has now agreed to refund the cost of the train fares “in this instance”. These words intimate that this is something it is only prepared to do on an individual case-by-case basis.

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