Darren

It worth noting that February and September are worse for this. This is when the airlines can book the Airport and Air traffic control slots for the following months. (Hence why a lot of timetables change in March/October).

At the same time airlines look at there routes and rationalize them (meaning cancel bad ones and put more on good ones).

Report this comment

Darren

A couple of things crop up with booking space, 2 or 3 airlines wanting same time. While it easy to do this at airports ATC is another matter.

Your Flight to Oslo could be changed due to the aircraft not getting the times it wants over Greece! Yes Greece.

Because before your flight to Oslo your Aircraft is going London to Cyprus. Then a flight from Cairo to Moscow wants the same time as the flight London to Cyprus. So one has to take the next slot 4 hours later and your airline lost the toss. Which would mean your aircraft is not in the right place to fly to Oslo. So on and so forth.

New Routes.

Survey shows that 27000 people wish to fly A – Y. So an airline goes, Great I need 15000 a year to make that route work. They start it and by X date they expect 1/3 people to of booked. They look at the figures and realize that only 2000 bookings have been taken. So they cancel that route.

Old Routes

Last year XYZ Air carried 21000 people from A-Z. So they go “great let’s keep that route”. By January last year they had taken 5000 bookings, but this year they taken 2000.. So scrap the route.

A number of reasons can cause this including another airline starting a route say at Birmingham, effecting traffic from Bristol. You may think there a long way apart but these things have effects. And of course the worse one… customers do not want that route anymore.. The been there done that worn out the t-shirt syndrome

Report this comment

I have a Ryanair flight booked for my first flight on my round the world tour (hence why I’m devouring this blog) and it’s been changed by 4 hrs. Luckily it’s direct to Rome where i’ll be staying for a few days before moving on so the inconvinience is negligable. They were quite clear in their email that I could receive a full refund as the change was greater than 2 hours. All I’ll lose is some time in Rome.

I’d be worried if i had a connecting flight however!

Report this comment

With the continued rise of low cost airlines these issues (flight schedule changes and cancellations) are getting worse.

The major airlines tend to stick with a schedule for longer and make most of their schedule changes twice a year (as Nick posted above). Low cost airlines tend to be more nimble – trying out lots of new routes and flights in the hopes they will work and being much quicker to pull them if they don’t work out straight away.

Obviously this is a generalisation, but using this information I tend to not buy airline tickets much in advance on some airlines, whereas others I’m happy to book almost a year ahead.

Report this comment

Travel insurance should cover this.

Report this comment

Yes and sometimes even if they refund you, they will still charge something for administrative fee

Report this comment

It usually happens if I am going away with my son for half term and we booked to go on Friday night. Then the flight provider in a very relaxed way informs us that the flight has been changed to go six hours earlier, landing me in the hot waters with the school and with my son’s dad.

Report this comment

Just happenned to me. Flight from Manchester to Preveza in Greece booked through Travel Republic who booked through Golden Trail on a Monarch flight. Out of the blue received an email from Travel Republic saying the flight is cancelled, spoke to Monarch who claim that there never was a flight and must have been one arranged by TR.
I have booked accomadation and parking and now have to find a new flight. Everyone blaims each other

Report this comment

I agree with cartlin, travel insurance should cover some unforeseeable circumstances. In fact, these days travel insurance is not very costly as one can get deals below £30. The downside with travel insurance is that once you pay it, it is gone even if you did not put in a claim. But that is part of the business.

Report this comment

Dave. It is Goldtrail not TR fault. We had flight cancellations from Goldtrail on a flight that is still going. We rebooked our customer with a differant company.

Report this comment

@Darren I’m not talking about flight refunds, which would come from the airline itself.

I was specifically talking about reimbursement for any money lost on accommodation and other bookings. Travel insurance would ordinarily cover you for this, independently of any claim you may have with the airline.

Travel insurance won’t compensate you for inconvenience, though the airline may also provide flight vouchers as compensation for the inconvenience. But if you are insured, there is no reason for you to be out of pocket beyond whatever excess is payable on your policy.

Report this comment

I’ve just received notice from agean flights that they want to change my flight times to the middle of the night. Annoyingly the daytime flights that I booked are still scheduled. I know on the t & c they say they can ammend but surely if the original times are still flying are they allowed to bump me to another flight? Doesnt seem fair

Report this comment