Thread: Am I entitled to any compensation?

This happened to me last June. I'm not expecting to get any compensation any more as it was a long time ago (?), but it would be nice to know for future reference.

My route was: BA flight from Lyon - Heathrow, then train from Paddington - Exeter.

I had left myself 3 hours in between the times from my plane landing at Heathrow and my train departing Paddington - therefore plenty of time even if there was a bad delay.

But my flight delay was unprecedented, it was about 6 hours late. By the time I got to London, it was near midnight and the last train for the Westcountry had already left. I had booked my train ticket in advance online so my money for that was wasted. I slept for a few hours on the floor and on benches at Heathow, then I got across to Paddington on a succession of night buses and had to pay £70 for a new train ticket to Exeter at 5:17am (the first train of the day).

Luckily I was insured and the company kindly paid me my £70 back for the extra train ticket, but didn't pay anything for the highly inconvenient plane delay which caused the whole thing. To be fair to them, that was OK because on the policy the flight had to be 12 hours late for them to pay anything. But I would like to know if the airline should have to pay me any compensation for the severe inconvenience.

Now, the reason for the delay was that a gas main at Heathrow had burst, and the whole airport had had to be evacuated and all flights diverted, cancelled or delayed. Mine was the third option: delayed. BA refused to pay either for a hotel room or for general inconvenience or for my missed train, because they said the situation was not their fault, so there was absoutely nothing they could do. Is this true? Under the EU directive or any other rule, should they have done something to help me?

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Many thanks for the link, it looks helpful!