Cancelled flight due to "Network Optimisation"
Discussion
A question to anyone who has ever had a planned flight cancelled (several months before flight date) by the Airline for reasons which are purely for the Airlines convenience / profitability.
How accommodating were they with alternative options - did they bend over backwards to offer you something that fitted in with your plans, or was it case of "there's this other flight - take it, or have a refund"?
I got the first email last night, but have to wait a couple of weeks before they tell me what alternatives they are proposing.
How accommodating were they with alternative options - did they bend over backwards to offer you something that fitted in with your plans, or was it case of "there's this other flight - take it, or have a refund"?
I got the first email last night, but have to wait a couple of weeks before they tell me what alternatives they are proposing.
Not for a while (pre-covid) but yes.
They offered an alternative but as it was a few months from travel it was take the option or a refund.
With lots of people booking trips far in advance (a local travel agent is selling trips/vacations/tours for 2026 and 2027 currently) I can see lots of people getting these messages as the routings just arent nailed down yet and are based on informed assumptions.
They offered an alternative but as it was a few months from travel it was take the option or a refund.
With lots of people booking trips far in advance (a local travel agent is selling trips/vacations/tours for 2026 and 2027 currently) I can see lots of people getting these messages as the routings just arent nailed down yet and are based on informed assumptions.
Virgin d*cked me on PVG>LHR for October this year.
I could re book on any flight - same route - for same cost, or get a full refund.
The only snag was my flight was 30th October and they cease the route at the end of September... so its literally impossible to re-book.
Thus, I took the full refund.
I have heard MAN>LAS is also in doubt and possibly a couple of others.
I could re book on any flight - same route - for same cost, or get a full refund.
The only snag was my flight was 30th October and they cease the route at the end of September... so its literally impossible to re-book.
Thus, I took the full refund.
I have heard MAN>LAS is also in doubt and possibly a couple of others.
omniflow said:
How accommodating were they with alternative options - did they bend over backwards to offer you something that fitted in with your plans, or was it case of "there's this other flight - take it, or have a refund"?
There's not much more they can do than offer you their alternative flights - or a refund. They will generally offer alternative flights for the the original fare paid though.If by bending over backwards you mean routing you on a different airline - no, they won't do that. Nor will they usually pay any compensation if prices have gone up.
Always worth a quick look around before accepting the alternative though, in case prices have gone down. In the past, I've taken a refund & rebooked with the same airline for less.
My wife is flying Virgin tonight SFO > LHR and they cancelled the flight 2 days ago! They rebooked her TWO days later on another flight, but managed to get it changed to an earlier one today. Operation reasons. The earlier one is only half full so I guess they didn't want to run to half full flights...
LarryUSA said:
My wife is flying Virgin tonight SFO > LHR and they cancelled the flight 2 days ago! .....
Cancelling within 14 days of the flight = compensationhttps://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/consumer/holiday...
Car bon said:
omniflow said:
How accommodating were they with alternative options - did they bend over backwards to offer you something that fitted in with your plans, or was it case of "there's this other flight - take it, or have a refund"?
There's not much more they can do than offer you their alternative flights - or a refund. They will generally offer alternative flights for the the original fare paid though.If by bending over backwards you mean routing you on a different airline - no, they won't do that. Nor will they usually pay any compensation if prices have gone up.
Always worth a quick look around before accepting the alternative though, in case prices have gone down. In the past, I've taken a refund & rebooked with the same airline for less.
Usually the airline is fairly accommodating though but it really depends and this is what really separates good airlines from the crowd.
Usually it's just a change of 5/10 mins... you just log onto the passenger portal and click "I accept the changes" and move on with your day. Occasionally it's a major change. Sorted one out yesterday where a codeshare flight had moved me and I wouldn't have made a connection, they were willing to change the entire schedule to give me the shortest possible flight time (3 flights), I told them I'd be happy just to get me on an earlier flight from the first airport and I'd sit in transit for a few hours (the complete change would have had me getting up at 7 am and F that on holiday). All sorted out with a 15 min call.
Airlines that have multiple brands (I.E. IAG, KLM/AirFrance) will usually be happy to book you onto a partner airline or sometimes even a code share partner if need be (I.E. star alliance, one world partners). It's not uncommon for Iberia/BA to change you between the two if need be, I've even had an Iberia flight, coded as a BA flight operated by Finnair (so a Finnair plane and crew with BA catering sold by Iberia).
With flight changes, there's not much you can do, airlines are constantly under pressure to lower prices and doing this means controlling costs, so networks are always being optimised. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. I'm fortunate to say that I've won far more often than I've lost.
Edited by captain_cynic on Thursday 1st August 17:50
I booked flights from UK to Australia for last Christmas. As I was going for Christmas in school holidays needing firm dates, had 4 return tickets to buy, I was looking for the most "cost efficient on a decent airline". I found a German airline to be the cheapest and they code shared some of the route with a Singaporean airline. I booked months in advance - probably June, and got a pretty good price (for the time of year).
Anyway, around October time they emailed and said they'd had to move one of my flights.
Instead of going Manchester -> Munich -> Singapore -> Sydney and the same in reverse, they cancelled the first flight Manchester -> Munich and changed it to Manchester to Frankfurt - with no connecting flight
On ringing them up, they didn't seem that bothered and weren't that helpful initially - almost straight away offered to cancel the remaining flights! As there were no flights available for Singapore!
After checking prices, I realised that costs were now massively higher. I suspect, but, have no proof, they'd done it to get me to cancel. As they could make more money reselling them to someone else.
I refused and got them to change the flights - cost me the same - but ended up taking 10hrs longer to get there, with a layover in Singapore.
I also had NotSoEasyJet merge two flights from Copenhagen to Birmingham into one, resulting in my long weekend break being not so long, and a bit of an early checkout on the last day!
Anyway, around October time they emailed and said they'd had to move one of my flights.
Instead of going Manchester -> Munich -> Singapore -> Sydney and the same in reverse, they cancelled the first flight Manchester -> Munich and changed it to Manchester to Frankfurt - with no connecting flight
On ringing them up, they didn't seem that bothered and weren't that helpful initially - almost straight away offered to cancel the remaining flights! As there were no flights available for Singapore!
After checking prices, I realised that costs were now massively higher. I suspect, but, have no proof, they'd done it to get me to cancel. As they could make more money reselling them to someone else.
I refused and got them to change the flights - cost me the same - but ended up taking 10hrs longer to get there, with a layover in Singapore.
I also had NotSoEasyJet merge two flights from Copenhagen to Birmingham into one, resulting in my long weekend break being not so long, and a bit of an early checkout on the last day!
I was starting to get a bit despondent reading these replies. But then I re-read the initial email they sent and it quite clearly says "rebooked on to alternative flights on another carrier", so I cheered up a bit.
Regarding "bending over backwards", the flight is from Nassau to London, so my thinking was a flight to Miami and then fly to London from there. It does look like BA also fly that route, so that is probably the best option. I just need to wait now, and that's not something I'm very good at.
Regarding "bending over backwards", the flight is from Nassau to London, so my thinking was a flight to Miami and then fly to London from there. It does look like BA also fly that route, so that is probably the best option. I just need to wait now, and that's not something I'm very good at.
LarryUSA said:
My wife is flying Virgin tonight SFO > LHR and they cancelled the flight 2 days ago! They rebooked her TWO days later on another flight, but managed to get it changed to an earlier one today. Operation reasons. The earlier one is only half full so I guess they didn't want to run to half full flights...
I have concerns about virgin tbh, I do hope its not a sign of things to come. I think the full effects of the pandemic might only just be really playing out.For anyone who is interested, this is now fully resolved.
The original flight was from Nassau to London with Virgin. I booked it using airmiles as soon as the reward seats were released. 2 tickets in Upper Class.
Virgin are discontinuing the route from end of Feb 2025. We're flying in March 2025. A refund would have been useless.
We've been rebooked on the BA flight, same route, same date, leaving slightly later. 2 tickets in Business Class.
The lady on the Virgin helpdesk was super nice and incredibly helpful.
The original flight was from Nassau to London with Virgin. I booked it using airmiles as soon as the reward seats were released. 2 tickets in Upper Class.
Virgin are discontinuing the route from end of Feb 2025. We're flying in March 2025. A refund would have been useless.
We've been rebooked on the BA flight, same route, same date, leaving slightly later. 2 tickets in Business Class.
The lady on the Virgin helpdesk was super nice and incredibly helpful.
Ryanair cancelled our flight for September to Faro in March as they scrapped the Wednesday flights. Changed from daily flights to twice a week so now going 2 days earlier but with pretty rubbish flight times from what we originally had.
Nothing we could do about it but luckily our Airbnb was still available.
Ryanair regularly do this.
Flying with Lufthansa in February to Cape Town from Newcastle via Frankfurt - they scrapped the Frankfurt to Cape Town flight so now it’s Newcastle-Frankfurt-Munich-Cape Town - getting through to them was a nightmare but again having to travel a day earlier. Strangely the return flight is still Cape Town-Frankfurt-Newcastle - well it is for now……
Nothing we could do about it but luckily our Airbnb was still available.
Ryanair regularly do this.
Flying with Lufthansa in February to Cape Town from Newcastle via Frankfurt - they scrapped the Frankfurt to Cape Town flight so now it’s Newcastle-Frankfurt-Munich-Cape Town - getting through to them was a nightmare but again having to travel a day earlier. Strangely the return flight is still Cape Town-Frankfurt-Newcastle - well it is for now……
Boxster5 said:
Ryanair cancelled our flight for September to Faro in March as they scrapped the Wednesday flights. Changed from daily flights to twice a week so now going 2 days earlier but with pretty rubbish flight times from what we originally had.
Nothing we could do about it but luckily our Airbnb was still available.
Ryanair regularly do this.
Flying with Lufthansa in February to Cape Town from Newcastle via Frankfurt - they scrapped the Frankfurt to Cape Town flight so now it’s Newcastle-Frankfurt-Munich-Cape Town - getting through to them was a nightmare but again having to travel a day earlier. Strangely the return flight is still Cape Town-Frankfurt-Newcastle - well it is for now……
Re FRA-CPT it Looks like it’s just the Friday outbound and Saturday returns they don’t operate?Nothing we could do about it but luckily our Airbnb was still available.
Ryanair regularly do this.
Flying with Lufthansa in February to Cape Town from Newcastle via Frankfurt - they scrapped the Frankfurt to Cape Town flight so now it’s Newcastle-Frankfurt-Munich-Cape Town - getting through to them was a nightmare but again having to travel a day earlier. Strangely the return flight is still Cape Town-Frankfurt-Newcastle - well it is for now……
On a positive note the MUC flight is on the A350
djc206 said:
Re FRA-CPT it Looks like it’s just the Friday outbound and Saturday returns they don’t operate?
On a positive note the MUC flight is on the A350
It's still on Lufthansa though. On a positive note the MUC flight is on the A350
They once turned two 19 hour flights into 30+ hours each with the return being 38 hours.
Their woeful customer service is the why I'll never fly them again.
omniflow said:
A question to anyone who has ever had a planned flight cancelled (several months before flight date) by the Airline for reasons which are purely for the Airlines convenience / profitability.
How accommodating were they with alternative options - did they bend over backwards to offer you something that fitted in with your plans, or was it case of "there's this other flight - take it, or have a refund"?
I got the first email last night, but have to wait a couple of weeks before they tell me what alternatives they are proposing.
I've had this before, last time was with Jet2. I received an email stating that the flight has been 'amended' from 8:50am flight to something like 5pm on the same day. Then they had opened up a new flight option for 9am on the same day .... How accommodating were they with alternative options - did they bend over backwards to offer you something that fitted in with your plans, or was it case of "there's this other flight - take it, or have a refund"?
I got the first email last night, but have to wait a couple of weeks before they tell me what alternatives they are proposing.
My issue was that they already had the 5pm flight which I hadn't chosen as it was inconvenient and 6 of us had booked on that flight (all seperate bookings) and it looked like they wanted to dump us all on the 5pm (which was cheaper) instead of offering us the 9am flight in the first instance which had little to no bearing on our plans. I called them to voice my displeasure at being bumped off and given the s
tty end of the stick ... it was all about profit ... they caved and transferred me onto the 9am flight ... as did two other in the group (one with multiple calls over 24 hours) and the rest stuck with the 5pm. So, if they offer you something inconvenient when they have a viable alternative which causes you less hassle, make sure you fight your corner.
captain_cynic said:
djc206 said:
Re FRA-CPT it Looks like it’s just the Friday outbound and Saturday returns they don’t operate?
On a positive note the MUC flight is on the A350
It's still on Lufthansa though. On a positive note the MUC flight is on the A350
They once turned two 19 hour flights into 30+ hours each with the return being 38 hours.
Their woeful customer service is the why I'll never fly them again.
djc206 said:
It’s been 25 years since I’ve flown with them. Flew with Swiss last year which is part of the group, they were supposed to take me from London to Zurich to Jo’burg. They took me to Zurich, our plane was sent to the US so I was sent to Milan, then Addis then Jo’burg and had to rent a car and drive into Kruger at night, that wasn’t at all sketchy… then they tried to claim it was a technical problem, the technical problem being that the plane was in the wrong hemisphere flying to a different city. I went to the ombudsman and got my money back quite quickly. I can also recommend Ethiopian airlines catering, very interesting. Addis airport on the other hand, a tad hectic.
Seems everyone has a LH horror story. I'm usually a guy who forgives, especially if the customer service handles it well.
With Lufthansa it was just lying to get you off the phone (to an offshore call centre) and there is no one at Frankfurt you can speak to either.
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