Was it extreme weather/ extraordinary circumstances under EC261

[Hanfan]

My BA32 flight from Hong Kong on 6th March was due to arrive at Heathrow the next morning at 5.45am, with an onward connection to Manchester at 6.55am. The flights were on one ticket bought on BA.com directly.

The first flight arrived 25 minutes late resulting in me missing my connection. The pilot announced that the delay was due to headwind. I was automatically rebooked on to 13.10 flight the same day.

I tried but was informed by Customer Service at the Heathrow business lounge that they could not rebook me onto an earlier flight at 9.45am as it was full. There was another 8am flight but it had been cancelled. Bad weather was cited as the reason for the cancellation.

My 13.10 flight was also delayed as there was a delay in loading the luggage onto the plane. It eventually landed at 14.52. My initial arrival was due at 7.55am so a total delay of nearly 7 hours.

I understand it is common to encounter headwind coming from HK. I wondered if what happened on 7th would be considered extreme weather under EC261 claim. Or should I just go ahead and make a claim?

Any advice will be gratefully received.

[JDB]

The late arrival from HKG doesn’t matter, and a headwind certainly doesn’t constitute ‘exceptional circumstances’ but what counts for UK261 purposes is the total delay from HKG-MAN and what happened with a weather related cancellation and then, probably as a result of that, the next flight being full etc. makes it all a bit complicated. I think that all you can do is to make the claim, setting out all the specific detail you have and see what BA says. The way they deal with things is strange, sometimes being surprisingly helpful but other times being totally obstructive. Here, they may try to deconstruct the delay such that most of it relates to ‘exceptional circumstances’.