You were hurt on a British Airways flight between California and London. The claim runs under a treaty rather than under California negligence law, and the first thing worth knowing is that the treaty is more favorable to you than the way airlines describe it.

Does the Montreal Convention Cover a British Airways Flight?

Yes. The United Kingdom and the United States are both parties, and the treaty governs international carriage between parties. The test is the itinerary rather than the leg, so a ticket from Los Angeles through Heathrow to Johannesburg is international carriage from end to end.

Below a threshold the treaty sets, British Airways is not permitted to argue it was not at fault for an injury caused by an accident on board. Above the threshold it can defend itself by proving it took all reasonable measures, and if it cannot, nothing caps what it owes. The number is a floor under your recovery rather than a ceiling over it, which is the opposite of how most passengers read it.

Can You Sue British Airways in California?

Often you can, and you should not assume London before anyone has looked at it. The treaty gives an injured passenger a forum at their principal and permanent residence, so long as the airline operates service to or from that place and does business there from premises it or a commercial partner occupies. Several factors decide whether those conditions were satisfied on your trip, among them the service the carrier was operating to or from California at the time and the presence it kept in the state. We can review the itinerary and tell you which forums are open. The mechanics are in suing a foreign airline in California.

A State-Owned Airline Is an Investor in Its Parent

This is the quirk specific to British Airways, and it is worth understanding because it looks alarming at first glance.

Under US law, a carrier that a foreign government owns or controls can be treated as an arm of that state, which changes the machinery of a case rather than its merits: a judge instead of a jury, and a particular route for serving the airline rather than ordinary means.

British Airways sits under a publicly traded European airline group, and a state-owned Gulf carrier has been a substantial investor in that group. Two things complicate the argument that this makes British Airways an arm of a foreign state. The size of a holding matters, and so does where in the corporate structure it sits, since a shareholding in a group above the airline is a different thing from ownership of the airline that flew you. Both the holdings and the structure change over time, which is why we check them against a current source rather than carrying a figure around. The short version is that this is the sort of structure that invites the argument, that the argument has real obstacles, and that it is worth resolving at the start of a case rather than the end.

Who You Actually Contracted With

British Airways runs one of the oldest and deepest transatlantic joint ventures with its US oneworld partner. A great deal of the California traffic is sold under the American carrier's name and flight number and operated by British Airways, or the reverse on the domestic connection.

The treaty separates the airline that sold you the ticket from the airline that flew the aircraft and permits a claim against either. If a US carrier sold you the ticket, it can be sued here with no foreign forum argument needed. Your boarding pass will not settle the question, because the number printed on it frequently belongs to the seller. The booking confirmation and its operated-by line will.

What injures passengers

Common Injuries on the London Run, and Which Ones the Treaty Reaches

The California sectors run ten to eleven hours, and Heathrow is a dense connecting hub, so many passengers fly two legs.

Overhead Bin and Falling Baggage

A bin that opens in flight, or a bag coming down during deplaning. External, and the clearest case the treaty handles.

Hot Liquid and the Service Cart

Scalding tea or coffee, or a cart striking a shoulder in the aisle. The cabin is under service for hours.

Turbulence

An unbelted passenger thrown from a seat. External. Whether the belt sign was on, and what the crew announced, usually matter.

Jetway and Airstairs Falls

Inside the treaty, because embarking and disembarking are part of the carriage. The jetway and the airstairs both count.

A Fall Inside the Terminal

Outside the treaty. A fall inside Heathrow is a premises claim in the United Kingdom, often on a much shorter deadline. Do not let it sit.

Clots, Cardiac Events, and Back Injuries

The hard category. The airline's answer is that your own condition surfaced on an ordinary flight, and it has been difficult to overcome.

Where We Are Not the Right Call

If you do not live in California, the residence forum follows your actual home. If you were hurt somewhere in Heathrow between flights rather than on the aircraft or the jetway, that is a premises claim in England against whoever operates the terminal, not a treaty claim, and English law and English deadlines govern it. If more than two years have passed since the aircraft landed, the claim is very probably dead, whatever the airline's claims team has been telling you. And a baggage loss goes through the airline's own process inside a notice window counted in days.

What to Do This Week

One. Retrieve the booking confirmation and work out whether the US partner or British Airways sold you the ticket. Given how much of this traffic moves on partner codes, assume nothing.

Two. Write the sequence down now, naming what moved or fell and which crew member you told.

Three. See a physician promptly, before the injury either worsens or looks undocumented.

Four. Mark two years from the landing date and work backwards from it.

If you live in California, something external happened to you on the aircraft, and you are inside two years, this is a workable claim. We evaluate them at no cost, and we will tell you plainly when the treaty's accident standard has not been met.