Complaint with British Airways - CEDR

[Customs]

I raised a complaint for flight compensation with BA, which they denied. I then went through the mediator CEDR, and while they still deny it, they have suggested a goodwill payment. If I don't accept it, it will go to the adjucator for review.

Does anyone know if there is a middle step where I can ask to negotiate and close it out, rather than go to an adjucator?

Thank you.

Not really. The negotiation is to go to adjudication and see if they have a different view.

The deny your complaint, whilst accepting you may have had a negative customer experience and are offing goodwill.

This isn't a legal issue though unless a law was broken or crime committed. It's just their policy.

Obviously don’t know the circumstances. But, if you reject the goodwill offer; are you CERTAIN you should be entitled to the compensation? My experience is that where liable airlines aren’t really that bad at paying out; so for them to be denying they must have a good reason why they don’t think they are liable - and the people dealing with the claims will be used to it. Not so say they don’t get it wrong of course but I would want to be really confident I was right.

To be honest I'm not 100% certain! The issue was as follows.

There was a security breach at the airport which led to 6 hour delays. Mass chaos and lots of media attention.

We got to the gate just as it closed.

The gate staff booked us onto the next flight 2 hours later, departing at the same gate. They told us our luggage had been taken off the flight and we should retrieve it first, before flying out. This involved getting out via passport control, then having to check back in, go through security etc.

We searched for our luggage as instructed. Turned out that the gate staff hadn't removed our luggage, and it had left on the flight after all.

By this point check in desks etc were closed and there was no way to get back to our gate. So we had to leave and come back the following day after booking onto another flight.

If the gate staff has told us our luggage had gone on the plane, we would have waited at the gate for the next flight 2 hours later, and wouldn't be claiming for flight compensation.

Someone’s given you duff info here! Which airport were you at?
If you had a 6 hour delay, were there loads of other passengers who also got to the gate too late?
Gate staff are not able to book you onto another flight - they don’t have the facilities to do this. Neither do they remove luggage.
You would have had to collect your luggage from the arrivals hall then return to departures to rebook your flight. I’m amazed the pilot chose to fly with your luggage still on the plane - this is a massive security risk!

The plane waited for ages and most people got on the flight. We missed it by minutes, we got to see it sit on the tarmac for 20 minutes and fly off. It was total chaos at the airport though.

I do think we got booked on at the gate for the next flight as we were getting emails from BA regarding that flight.

You are correct that they didn't remove luggage and therefore it flew without us. But they told us that they had and that we need to retrieve it before I next flight, which was incorrect info and delayed us further, as we missed the next flight.

This was Berlin.