British Airways flight BA115 from London Heathrow to New York JFK on Wednesday ended up diverting to Philadelphia due to bad weather. Once on the ground in Philadelphia, BA scrapped the flight and told passengers it was now up to them to get to their final destination.
Rather than arranging a coach or even taxis to transport them on the short 116-mile road trip to New York, British Airways sent passengers an email, saying that despite its “best efforts,” it couldn’t find any alternative transport to get them out of Philadelphia.
British Airways Route Termination (LHW -> JFK)
byu/vglace_18 inBritishAirways
The email ended: “We kindly request that you make your own arrangements to travel to your destination.” The email did not provide any advice on how passengers might go about doing this or proactively offer to reimburse customers for the expenses they’ll incur from doing so.
The initial diversion seems perfectly reasonable given the fact that New York JFK was suffering severe summer weather, including thunderstorms, which caused havoc for airlines across the region.
At one point, the FAA even imposed a ground stop at the airport before warning of long delays and significant ground delays.
British Airways flight 115 was due to land in New York at around 5:35 pm on July 30, but with the Boeing 777-300 on final approach and having dropped to an altitude of just 900 feet, the pilots decided that a rapidly changing weather system over the airport made it unsafe to land.
The plane climbed back to a safe altitude and immediately headed south towards Philadelphia, where it landed without incident around 30 minutes later.
With New York JFK still suffering significant delays, British Airways made the decision that there wasn’t any reasonable chance of getting the plane back to New York before the pilots and flight attendants ran out of legally mandated flying hours.
Passengers then received the following email:
“The decision to divert [was] due to the unexpected deterioration in the weather conditions. Diverting a flight is never an easy decision to make. The safest course of action for everyone involved is always carefully considered.”
“We’re truly sorry that due [to] operational challenges caused by the diversion, we have decided to terminate the service in Philadelphia.”
“We deeply regret that we have been unable to rebook you onto another flight [to] New York JFK and despite our best efforts, we’ve are (sic) unable to find alternative transport to get you to New York. Therefore, we kindly request that you make your own arrangements to travel to your final destination.”
As this was a British Airways flight from London, the passengers are covered under UK travel consumer law, which is meant to require airlines to arrange to get delayed passengers to their final destination as quickly as possible and under comparable traveling conditions.
Aviation regulators, however, acknowledge that airlines will sometimes make passengers book their own onward travel arrangements, especially during times of mass disruption.
In these cases, airlines are expected to reimburse passengers for any costs they have incurred, although Britain’s Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) advises customers to keep costs down as much as possible and to keep any receipts.
In the case of this diversion, it remains to be seen whether British Airways would have an issue with passengers claiming the cost of a rideshare over that of the much slower but cheaper train service.
Perhaps an Uber Black might be stretching the limits unless you are traveling in First Class, whereas an Uber Comfort would be seen as more appropriate for other passengers.
As for compensation, that’s unlikely to be payable as severe weather is generally considered an ‘extraordinary circumstance’, which is seen as outside the control of the airline.
Taxi to 30th St. Station in Philadelphia, train to Penn Station NY. There, I just found alternative transportation applicable to all passengers.
There’s also a train that stops at the airport that travels onward to 30th St. Station.