O?T: BA flight cancelation for tomorrow

[Silver flying chariot]

if it was your business, you would all do exactly the same as BA and make as much as you could. If you don't like it then vote with your feet and don't fly with them. Its not hard . Everyone is quick to moan about these things all the time, yet when push comes to shove bottle it and still fly with them.

Its a business, without your custom they go bust, they don't run flights for fun... therefore if you don't like their service then don't fly with them. its not that difficult

 

[Lady Whistledown]

my 12 year old son lives in sweden and was due in from copenhagen last night. norwegian air cancelled his flight just as he arrived to check in after a 3 hour train journey. the next flight they offered him was tomorrow night at the same time. his mum asked why not today and they said they were fully booked. i looked on the website and there was plenty of availability but the prices were £300 one way ( its usually £50 or so) . simple profiteering . wankers. especially when you have a 12 year old coming to see his dad for xmas

I'm not talking about your son's particular situation as I don't know anything about the cancellation in that particular case, but there's no way you'd get a flight, at any time, for £50 for travel the next day. The low priced tickets that airlines like Norwegian/EasyJet etc offer are the advance purchase ones, and if you ever need to travel at short notice, then you'll pay about the same as you would for a premium airline. That would be even more so at peak travel times, ie just before Christmas.

So while it is massively annoying for your family, in that particular instance, I think you'd have found it was £300 whether his flight had been cancelled or not. It's the way the airlines fill their seats, and the reason they can afford to offer seats in advance for prices like £50

 

[mcshane in the 79th]

That is outrageous

Surely Panaroma and the press should be all over stories like this?

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

If you don't like it then vote with your feet

That shoe-bomber bloke tried to vote with his feet, but they would not let him. Easier said than done my friend.

 

[beorhthelm]

ok its pretty outrageously over priced.

so how would you rather they decide who gets those seats? i'm sure you dont think you get them automatically over the other 500 people.

 

[ATFC Seagull]

Not that it helps, but Aer Lingus let me rebook 300 quid tickets for no extra cost after cancelling my £145 return flights.

 

[The Spanish]

ok its pretty outrageously over priced.

so how would you rather they decide who gets those seats? i'm sure you dont think you get them automatically over the other 500 people.

exec club status and fare paid will be the main determining factors of sorting out a pecking order if people due to travel on the same date are competing for seats.

 

[PHCgull]

if your customer buys something six months in advance, which is then undeliverable on the day, but IS replaceable with an almost identical product, do you then sell that identical product to the market rather than fulfil your original commitment?

If you do then fine. but why bleat on in the press about what a sensitive caring organisation you are which is "doing all it can"? Why not be like ryanair and say "we dont give a f***, we take the silver flying chariot view, tough shit, we can make money here"?

 

[PHCgull]

there was no pecking order - the available seats were avaialable to buy at hugely inflated price, but not available to transfer into

 

[Bozza]

Just had family xmas holiday cancelled by BA - they have seats in the same class on another flight to the same destination leaving 45 minutes earlier - can they move us into them? no, they are punting them at £2937 a pop. bastards.

So they've cancelled a flight that was probably carrying c300 people and there are a few seats available on a similar flight, and you think you should have been the lucky dip winners to get those seats ahead of hundreds of others?

What process do you think BA should have in place in order to find the most deserving cases from the cancelled flight to be moved to the other flight?

I note you think the other seats have sold. Maybe they have. Or maybe BA have now filled those seats with the gold/platinum/Willie's mates from your flight.

Note: I genuinely feel for you that your family holiday, something you've been looking forward to for months, has been shafted by the weather, but I think it's a bit short-sighted to expect YOU to have been the lucky ones to pick up the spare seats.

 

[severnside gull]

I regularly travel over to Amsterdam but have long since given up on airlines and I now drive over via eurotunnel. I can normally do the journey in 8 hours door to door which is about the same as the airlines after allowing for check-in etc. Drove back yesterday and it took me 14 hours but had I been flying I'd still be stuck at Schiphol. After years of being royally shafted and treated like shit by the airlines I am now happy to avoid them for all but long haul

 

[Fungus]

So they've cancelled a flight that was probably carrying c300 people and there are a few seats available on a similar flight, and you think you should have been the lucky dip winners to get those seats ahead of hundreds of others?

What process do you think BA should have in place in order to find the most deserving cases from the cancelled flight to be moved to the other flight?

I note you think the other seats have sold. Maybe they have. Or maybe BA have now filled those seats with the gold/platinum/Willie's mates from your flight.

Note: I genuinely feel for you that your family holiday, something you've been looking forward to for months, has been shafted by the weather, but I think it's a bit short-sighted to expect YOU to have been the lucky ones to pick up the spare seats.

Sorry, Bozza, but I think post #28 has this nailed. They've sold it to him, they've cancelled it, then offered an (almost) identical item at a vast profit. Gazumping.

 

[beorhthelm]

Sorry, Bozza, but I think post #28 has this nailed.

no it hasnt at all, because its from the point of view that there is no one else involve. theres a whole flight full of other people in the same position. prehaps a random allocation is better, but then what happens if four people from seperate groups are picked? maybe the airline should just pretend it doesnt have the seats, so as not to upset anyone and treat everyone fairly?

 

[Bozza]

Sorry, Bozza, but I think post #28 has this nailed. They've sold it to him, they've cancelled it, then offered an (almost) identical item at a vast profit. Gazumping.

They would have had c300 people with a product sold to them and, in all likelihood, c10 replacement seats on the other plane. Why would our chap have got some of those seats over all the other similarly affected poor feckers?

And we do not know that some people didn't get swapped to that flight. The fact that...

a) Bloke hears his flight has been cancelled.
b) Bloke immediately checks BA.com, or elsewhere, to see if anything else is available, and there is.
c) Bloke checks again later and nothing else is available.

...doesn't mean that BA merely sold those seats on to those with deep pockets.

It could mean that BA were taking their time sorting out who from the cancelled flight to allocate those seats to.

Or maybe they did sell them to the highest bidder as they know that c300 into c10 doesn't go so the fairest way is not to pick and choose the lucky few.

 

[Icy Gull]

As someone who works in the travel business, which regularly gets knocked as not being needed in the age of the internet, let me tell you how your flight cancellation would have been handled if you'd booked through an IATA travel agency. If you were booked on a scheduled flight you would have been able to change you to the next available flight on the same airline showing availability in the cabin you were booked in, free of charge. I am shocked as how the thread starter has been handled by BA because what I have just described should have been applied by the airline. Nobody should be asked to pay more unless they are upgrading.

We have rebooked many passengers in the way described above, not always on the same day but generally within a 24 hour period of flights operating and not one has had to pay a penny extra.

 

[PHCgull]

So they've cancelled a flight that was probably carrying c300 people and there are a few seats available on a similar flight, and you think you should have been the lucky dip winners to get those seats ahead of hundreds of others?

What process do you think BA should have in place in order to find the most deserving cases from the cancelled flight to be moved to the other flight?

I note you think the other seats have sold. Maybe they have. Or maybe BA have now filled those seats with the gold/platinum/Willie's mates from your flight.

Note: I genuinely feel for you that your family holiday, something you've been looking forward to for months, has been shafted by the weather, but I think it's a bit short-sighted to expect YOU to have been the lucky ones to pick up the spare seats.

What process? - first come, first served. We were checking on a five-minute basis all day and the MOMENT the flight was cancelled we tried to move our flight to the exact equivalent. nothing doing. I accept that 300 into 10 doesnt go, but that doesnt mean you should profiteer from it.

Applying your logic, GLastonbury tickets would go on sale the day before the event and cost £10k each

 

[Kinky Gerbil]

The very first thing any decent, reputable company would do is offer you, their customer who they have greatly inconvenienced and buggered about, alternative seats on the nearest available flight. Clearly they'd rather screw people over though.

BA = scum.

Working for a holiday company I can assure you its not just BA, Infact BA are one of the better ones. Singapore arilines have been charging up to 8k more to move the flights back.

In my view they have done nothing wrong, the will offer you a full refund or a change of date, If you were to book last minute flights anywhere at this time of year you would be looking at a massive increase.

7 days in the hilton DXB with flights out of season for 2 people around 2k over Christmas 5k and thats if you book in advance.

 

[Kinky Gerbil]

if your customer buys something six months in advance, which is then undeliverable on the day, but IS replaceable with an almost identical product, do you then sell that identical product to the market rather than fulfil your original commitment?

If you do then fine. but why bleat on in the press about what a sensitive caring organisation you are which is "doing all it can"? Why not be like ryanair and say "we dont give a f***, we take the silver flying chariot view, tough shit, we can make money here"?

It depends on how much you brought it for and if there was any deals.

BA wouldnt really be thinking that at the moment, they are well aware people dont have them as a number one choice at the moment, they are not going to piss people off even more.

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

What process? - first come, first served. We were checking on a five-minute basis all day and the MOMENT the flight was cancelled we tried to move our flight to the exact equivalent. nothing doing. I accept that 300 into 10 doesnt go, but that doesnt mean you should profiteer from it.

Applying your logic, GLastonbury tickets would go on sale the day before the event and cost £10k each

Maybe Brighton should cancel everyone's match day tickets the day before the first game at Falmer...then re-sell them all for £300 each?

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

they are well aware people dont have them as a number one choice at the moment, they are not going to piss people off even more.

I do not think it's a case of wanting to, or not wanting to piss people off. From my experience I get the impression they are a bit out of their depth with the current situation. Anyone who knows me knows my view of BA, and the fact I have refused to travel with them for years as they are such a poor airline. Due to timings and geography I was forced into using them on Saturday.......never again. Compared to many other airlines their service, and their customer service especially, are appalling. They're fine when everything is working...but the minute there is a problem they just seem to collapse and blame everyone else. Exactly what is happening now.