Hundreds of passengers who planned to fly to Tel Aviv in September could be in line for compensation from British Airways totalling thousands of pounds after an independent adjudicator found the airline had wrongly cancelled a family’s cheap tickets.

In June, Professor Sanjoy Mukherjee-Richardson bought return tickets for himself, his wife and five-year-old son for a total of £501.48 through an agency, intending to fly to Israel before Succot in September.

But he was one of 2,000 passengers whose tickets were cancelled by British Airways because the airline said the price they paid was too cheap and a mistake.

Although the airline refunded passengers their money, Professor Mukherjee-Richardson complained to the Independent Redress Scheme for Passengers.

The adjudicator last month found in his favour, ordering British Airways either to find alternative flights at the same price or to pay 1,800 euros (£1,570) compensation.

Professor Mukherjee-Richardson said he was delighted that “British Airways — after dragging their heels on this issue — have finally been directed to uphold the original contract. 

“It’s a shame that it has had to get to this stage but I hope that others who were affected will follow this approach to get flights that they had booked and paid for.”

A spokesman for the airline said: “As soon as we understood the error, we contacted travel agents to let them know we would be fully refunding passengers who had been sold the incorrect fare.

“We apologised to customers, and offered them a voucher towards replacement flights for the inconvenience.”