Can I claim compensation after Gatwick drone chaos?

Q After spending almost five hours on a British Airways flight on the tarmac at Gatwick yesterday morning, our flight was eventually cancelled. We were advised no help was available in the terminal and were told to go home. Later, we were offered by text a flight from Heathrow to an alternative airport. This would depart 38 hours after our original flight. As we were on a short-break ski holiday we have cancelled, trying to transfer or rebook after Christmas. Should BA refund the total cost? Have we hampered our cause by cancelling?

Trish S

A You were one of the 100,000 passengers whose travel plans were wrecked by the “drone ranger”, who caused many hours of chaos by operating an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) in such a way as to threaten air travel. It must have been profoundly frustrating and upsetting to be sitting on an aircraft going nowhere for so long.

British Airways has done the right thing by offering another flight, even though the current (non-binding) advice from the Civil Aviation Authority is that you really should be rebooked on a flight, if one is available, on the same day; this applies even if British Airways has to book a flight on a rival airline for you.

Unfortunately it sounds to me as though you have not booked a package holiday: flights and accommodation (and possibly transfers/rental car) in a single transaction. If you had, then the travel firm that put together the package would be responsible for sorting out the carnage at the Sussex airport and restoring your holiday to the best of its ability – or giving you a full refund.

If you booked the different elements of the holiday in separate transactions, then British Airways has no obligation to you. The disarray at Gatwick is certainly not within BA’s control, and its conditions of carriage rule out liability for “consequential losses” of the sort you incurred.

Perhaps you have a particularly good travel insurance policy, in which case this most unfortunate sequence of events might be covered. But otherwise I fear all you can do is liaise with the accommodation provider at your intended destination and see if they have any flexibility to defer your trip.

Sorry I can’t be more optimistic about such an awful situation for so many people.

Every day our travel correspondent Simon Calder tackles a reader’s question. Just email yours to s@hols.tv or tweet @simoncalder