BA and BAA Strikes and Travel Insurance
With the proposed strikes and industrial action by British Airways cabin crew and BAA Staff, if you have or are planning on purchasing travel insurance for your trip, this post is designed to give you some details of what you are covered for and what you cannot make a claim for.
CANCELLATION OR CURTAILMENT - NO COVER
Customers, who are planning to travel during the strike action may be considering submitting a claim under the cancellation section as a result of:
- Disinclination to travel due to potential disruption to their travel arrangements, caused by the strike.
- Receiving notification that their original flight has been cancelled and customers rejecting alternative options offered by the airline.
- Wanting to curtail holidays e.g. return to home early than anticipated, in order to avoid any travel disruption as a result of their return flights being affected by the strike.
On either of these and similar scenerios, we will not accept claims under the cancellation or curtailment section as Strike / Industrial Action is not a specified peril in any of our policy wordings.
You should contact the airline for further advice and assistance.
DELAYED DEPARTURE - cover as normal for flights that aren’t cancelled in advance
The intention of this benefit is to compensate customers for the inconvenience of finding themselves stranded at the airport. In order to claim, customers’ flights must have been subject to a minimum of 12 hours delay from the scheduled time of departure.
We expect customers to either have checked in or provide a written note from the airline (at the airport) confirming that they were not allowed to check in and also providing details of how many hours delay the flight was affected by.
NOTE: The difficulty may be for customers to prove that they remained at the airport for 12 hours or more, especially if they were unaware of the above requirements. A need for pragmatism may be required here and payments may be awarded according to individual circumstances.
Travel Delay is a benefit, so customers are not required to submit receipts as evidence of expenses incurred.
ABANDONMENT OF TRIP - cover as normal for flights that aren’t cancelled in advance
The intention of the policy is to cover customers who, having checked in, find their flights being subject to a delay, after 24 hours (from the scheduled time of departure) decide to abandon the trip.
As has previously been the case, the airline may instruct their customers not to travel to the airport on the confirmed strike dates.
We will therefore consider accepting claims under this section, for customers who have been told not to travel to the airport, under the following conditions:
1. Customers must provide proof of original flight.
2. Customers can only claim for abandonment after 24 hours have elapsed from the original time of departure.
Customers must provide evidence of flight being delayed and or receiving instructions from the airline not to travel to the airport / not to check in. If customers experience difficulties in providing proof that their flight has been delayed or that they have recieved instructions from the airline not to check in, claim handlers are required to seek confirmation from the airline.
CUSTOMERS CANNOT CLAIM FOR ABANDONMENT IF THE FLIGHT HAS BEEN COMPLETELY CANCELLED BY THE AIRLINE WHICH IS LIKELY IN THE CASE OF BA FLIGHTS.
Under the Abandonment section, we will only reimburse irrecoverable costs.
If customers accept alternative dates, offered by the airline, they may need to alter their insurance dates of cover.
Claims under any other sections of the policy will be subject to normal terms and conditions of the wording.