British Airways Cancelled Flight
 

Last night, Sept 9, 2010 I arrived at Dulles Airport in plenty of time to check in for a flight to Healthrow - Flight 216. The lines were long and not moving. Finally word began to spread that it was cancelled because the first officer was sick! Don't they have a back up plan? We stood for hours in a mass of confusion while they rebooked people. There were not enough ticket agents for the first hour and a half and then more came on. They kept moving us to this line and that and after 3 hours I finally was rebooked for the same flight the next day. So I am missing one day of my tour and had to pay 2 extra cab fares. Will try to collect from BA. Has anyone else ever heard of such a poor excuse for cancelling an entire 747?

we had the same problem with the airline i work for. our first officer became ill on a layover. airlines dont have crews at every city they fly to but only their bases. our flight was from VCV-RFD and because we dont have a crew base in VCV we had to cancel until the next day.

Happened Again
 

Thanks for you imput Courtney. But I just have to tell you that the same thing happened the next night. Stood in line for ages only to find out the first office was still sick and the flight couldn't not take off as scheduled. They moved it to 3 am that night when a copilot was available. What I found unbelievable is that it happened to the same flight 2 days in a row! I felt sorry for the ticket agents when they had hundreds of angry, frustrated passengers standing there complaining. Connie

If the first officer went sick, BA would then have to fly someone over to take over the flight. Once this person had travelled the 8 hours, they would need a full rest period, before taking on the return flight. This would explain the delay to 3am. I am no fan of the airlines, but sometimes these things happen and are just unavoidable. No airline can just have "spare crew" sitting all around the world just in case someone pulls a sickie.

According to the EC regulation No. 261/2004 you may be entitled to a compensation of Euro 600 from BA if the reason for the cancelled flight was not due to extraordinary circumstances ( causes outside the operation of the flight, sabotage or acts of terror)

To get help try his link http://flightmole.com/claim_recovery.htm