What are your rights if an airline reschedules or cancels your flight?
Emily and Alec were gearing up for their annual holiday to Oz. The couple, in their eighties, booked an afternoon flight to make the trip less taxing. Then came the bad news: their 4pm flight with Pacific Blue was cancelled and they were re-booked on a 7.25am flight. So much for avoiding the 4am wake-up call.
Changes to scheduled flights happen for any number of reasons but they’re occurring more often than usual. The reason: passenger bookings are down and scheduled flights with too many empty seats are being dumped. Pacific Blue spokesperson Phil Boeyen told us “in the current economic environment we (and all airlines worldwide) are making these changes from time to time”.
What are your rights if this happens to you? If your flight is cancelled, the airline should rebook you on another suitable flight at no extra cost. But you need to be aware that if you booked with a budget airline that operates a limited number of flights, there may not be much choice about when you fly.
If your travel is time-sensitive – you need to fly at a particular time or not go at all – check the airline’s terms and conditions carefully to see whether you’ll get your money back. If you book with an airline that has a no-refund clause, you may want to consider taking out insurance that provides cover for cancelled flights.
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Airlines cannot contract out of the Consumer Guarantees Act if the flihts booked are for personal rather than business travel, regardless of the ticket conditions. Therefore if the rescheduled flight is no longer fit for purpose, which would in the example given be to avoid a 4am wakeup call, then the passengers should be entitled by law to a full refund which could go toward them rebooking on another airline with a more suitable schedule.
It also pays to double-check your itinerary if you have a multi-leg journey.
We recently travelled overseas and found that in the month leading up to our departure a one hour connection in Munich had been changed by the airline to a 6 hour wait. We were travelling with young children and were arriving from Hong Kong--that extra 5 hours made a huge difference and meant that we arrived at our destination mid afternoon rather than early morning. With a limited time in that city, that effectively cost us a day.
The airline had done the rebooking after we'd paid for our travel and our travel agent hadn't noticed. Because of this, we missed an earlier possible connection that would have cut the wait from 6 hours to 3. Unfortunately, because we didn't get the new itinerary until three days before we left (when we picked up the tickets) by then the better connecting flight was full and we were stuck with the wait.
Our agent was apologetic, but at the end of the day, it made no real difference to her. From now on, I intend to insist that any change to our itinerary (including timing of flights) is brought to our attention immediately.