Airline brinksmanship over Covid-19

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Gonzo230
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Re: Airline brinksmanship over Covid-19

Post by Gonzo230 »

A lot of the flights going into LHR, for example, are mainly more or less empty in terms of passengers, but full of cargo (and at the moment a lot of that is medical supplies and equipment).

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jasonT1981
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Re: Airline brinksmanship over Covid-19

Post by jasonT1981 »

Looks like Aer Lingus are going to give me voucher for full price of flights plus 10%. Easyjet are being a bit harder to deal with. I had 6 with them this year and only 2 with Aer Lingus.

parsley
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Re: Airline brinksmanship over Covid-19

Post by parsley »

Gonzo230 wrote:A lot of the flights going into LHR, for example, are mainly more or less empty in terms of passengers, but full of cargo (and at the moment a lot of that is medical supplies and equipment).



Very true...and a number of passenger carriers are now operating their passenger aircraft in the ad hoc freighter role given you can get about 40 tons of freight or so in the hold of a passenger less 777-300.
American Airlines and Air Canada have been doing this.

Zoom
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Re: Airline brinksmanship over Covid-19

Post by Zoom »

I've got a screenshot of my booking clearly stating that the flight is cancelled and that I am entitled to a full refund but when I go to Manage Disruption I only have the option to change the flight

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Gonzo230
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Re: Airline brinksmanship over Covid-19

Post by Gonzo230 »

Zoom, I think you need to call

TonyB
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Re: Airline brinksmanship over Covid-19

Post by TonyB »

Gonzo230 wrote:Zoom, I think you need to call


I think that an Email would be better, at least there´s something in writing.

My experience, albeit mit Finnair, booked TXL-HEL-NRT and back for May. First of all I got a mail to tell me that the HEL-NRT flight was cancelled and that I should contact customer services, which I did - at the moment TXL-HEL is still operating, which doesn´t help me at all - the flight was cancelled and I asked for a refund.

Then a Mail to tell me that NRT-HEL is cancelled. Same as the outward journey, contact customer services.

Wrote to said services and told them that I expected to be also refunded for the TXL-HEL and return part of the journey. It´s possible if the flight is on the same ticket.

I received a Mail earlier to tell me that all monies will be refunded without any fees incurred.

That is all I wanted, getting something in writing which I can use if anything goes pearshaped.

I don´t know if it will help your situation, but do try to get something in writing.

Zoom
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Re: Airline brinksmanship over Covid-19

Post by Zoom »

I have a screengrab of my booking shown as Cancelled and the offer of a full refund;

They are now offering vouchers but haven't bought that either as they are only valid 6 months

Looks like the Gov will keep them flying for a few more weeks with tonight's news about bringing Brits home

TYPHOON3
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Re: Airline brinksmanship over Covid-19

Post by TYPHOON3 »

I have a few holidays booked this year. The first one in mid May was booked through Love Holidays flying with Ryanair. Heard nothing about that one yet. The second one was end of June through TUI and they have let me move that to 2021.The third in August so too early on that one yet. I am due to go to New York in December with BA so hopefully we are back to some normality by then.

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BDL
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Re: Airline brinksmanship over Covid-19

Post by BDL »

@Zoom - I had an email from Easyjet saying that they had cancelled and were issuing a refund to us but it would take up to 6 weeks, the email ended up in Spam ( I have issues with Sky and using Thunderbird).

I already started a section 27 complaint with my bank as I paid for it with my credit card. So may be worth contacting your bank and send them the evidence?

Zoom
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Re: Airline brinksmanship over Covid-19

Post by Zoom »

I'm waiting for them to refund, it can't be easy because they must be having to go through credit / debit card transactions for every case.

More worrying and not related to the airline was the place I was planning to go to in Poland. Despite having given me until tomorrow night to cancel for free in writing (which I did yesterday) they have moved the goalposts and are refusing to refund my deposit. Ok it's only £70 but a bit rich considering I'm not allowed to enter the country and am unlikely to be in 7 weeks, and they will probably also be closed anyway. I've asked them to reconsider but if they don't they are going to be outed on Tripadvisor. The perils of dealing with small operators.

Occam
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Re: Airline brinksmanship over Covid-19

Post by Occam »

Zoom wrote:The perils of dealing with small operators.

It's not just small operators; I have a return Eurotunnel trip that I booked last Summer (because I like to plan ahead). They're allowing me to rebook, but only within a year of the date on which I made the original booking (as opposed to within a year of the date I booked to travel). We're still likely to be under lockdown on that date, so I effectively have no way of using it.

On the flipside, I assume they're still running some trains, and if I turned up with the relevant permission from the French authorities to travel they'd presumably take me, so they're keeping to their part of the bargain. We're all losers in this, so I don't mind taking a bit of the financial hit; I still think it's a bit mean not to extend the rebooking period though...

Darren50
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Re: Airline brinksmanship over Covid-19

Post by Darren50 »

I flew with Singapore airlines from Heathrow to Sydney on March 14th and arrived in Sydney at 0730 on March 16th which was 7.5 hours after Australia decided 14 days self isolation was necessary with no prior warning. Obviously this was not acceptable as I was not intending to be in Australia for 14 days, as I had a planned stop over in Singapore on return. I managed to get a return back to the UK on March 17th, but am having no luck with getting any refunds, after all I did actually make a somewhat pointless Journey. I had intended to do the Indian Pacific to Perth and visit relatives. I couldn't even do that Am thinking I have lost an awful lot of money here.

Joe Spares
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Re: Airline brinksmanship over Covid-19

Post by Joe Spares »

Occam wrote:
Zoom wrote:The perils of dealing with small operators.

It's not just small operators; I have a return Eurotunnel trip that I booked last Summer (because I like to plan ahead). They're allowing me to rebook, but only within a year of the date on which I made the original booking (as opposed to within a year of the date I booked to travel). We're still likely to be under lockdown on that date, so I effectively have no way of using it.

On the flipside, I assume they're still running some trains, and if I turned up with the relevant permission from the French authorities to travel they'd presumably take me, so they're keeping to their part of the bargain. We're all losers in this, so I don't mind taking a bit of the financial hit; I still think it's a bit mean not to extend the rebooking period though...

Me and a group of friends were supposed to go to frisian flag with eurotunnel the night we were locked down, obviously we werent going by then, but as trains were still running got no refund.... l have also got a travel voucher for flights fron BA and KLM for other trips planned, ( tiger meet etc) the chances of using them within the 12 months stipulated are near non existant, so im down about 300 quid easily with nothing to show for it..

Berf
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Re: Airline brinksmanship over Covid-19

Post by Berf »

If the flights are cancelled they have to refund. I could have had a voucher two weeks ago for a BA flight in May although it was not cancelled. Since then they have cancelled the flight and I can now get a refund or voucher. (But have to phone up for the refund which is a real pain). Check if your flights are cancelled if they are call them.

Zoom
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Re: Airline brinksmanship over Covid-19

Post by Zoom »

I bit the bullet and re-booked the eJ Paris flight for next year at no cost. Yes they might go bust and yes the flight might still be cancelled but I think they need to keep whatever bookings they have for now as for me they are a great asset to the airline industry and also the budget traveller

They were the first airline to offer one way trips AFAIK which has opened a whole range of possibilities and it was for this purpose the first time I ever flew with them in 1997

This is interesting...

https://www.itv.com/news/2020-04-16/eas ... is-lifted/

Zoom
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Re: Airline brinksmanship over Covid-19

Post by Zoom »

I think Macron's message today about where his citizens can expect to travel this year (Europe only, presumably also the UK / Ireland) gives a big clue as to which routes will restart.

I deferred flights I'd booked to Poland for the end of the month to April 2021; only cost £7 to change for 2 of us. easyJet fares are picking up pretty quickly for late 2020 / early 2021

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iainpeden
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Re: Airline brinksmanship over Covid-19

Post by iainpeden »

On Monday I heard that my BA flights into Denver and out of Las Vegas in June were cancelled.

I called the helpline to arrange refund and 3 times over was just cut off.

So I used the chat facility, had an instant response,gave all required details and within 10 minutes was told I would have a full refund within 5-10 working days.

The full amount was in my account this morning.

Well done BA.
(Mark Twain: There are lies, there are damn lies and then there are statistics)

Zoom
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Re: Airline brinksmanship over Covid-19

Post by Zoom »

Had no problem transferring all my easyJet flights to a later date in 2021 at no extra cost.

The next dilemma is going to be a flight to Corsica booked for a month's time. If the UK Gov't impose a quarantine on arrivals from France I would need to know 14 days in advance in order to change the flights without losing the whole lot. The removal of Spain from the list was done at 48 hours notice.

They say book all your hols through a proper tour company but it can work out much more expensive than building your own package

Occam
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Re: Airline brinksmanship over Covid-19

Post by Occam »

Zoom wrote:
Tue 04 Aug 2020, 12:06 pm
They say book all your hols through a proper tour company but it can work out much more expensive than building your own package
And that's one reason why; in addition to all the margins and mark-ups, you're also paying the operator to absorb a lot of the financial risk.

Like you, I book all my holidays piecemeal. For reasons I don't understand, some of my friends regard the ability to do this as some kind of superpower, so I'm quite frequently asked for advice on holiday planning. This Summer, my advice has universally been not to commit any more money to an overseas holiday than you are prepared to lose if things go wrong.

Zoom
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Re: Airline brinksmanship over Covid-19

Post by Zoom »

I'm not sure if Corsica was ever on the regular package holiday offerings from the UK. It's pretty expensive so I booked a couple of relatively reasonable places while they were still available. If the UK takes France off the safe list it's out of the question to go there. So far I've committed €70 to one of the accommodations which I will have lost if it becomes verboten. The flights are £250 for 2 which is a lot to risk; might get half that back if we have to amend the flights at short notice.

I've used easyJet holidays quite a lot and still do. They are basically just a basic hand luggage only flight and accommodation through Booking.com, but as you say they cost more than booking the two elements separately so you are paying for ATOL protection and / or a full refund if you are unable to go due to UK restrictions

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jasonT1981
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Re: Airline brinksmanship over Covid-19

Post by jasonT1981 »

I got 4 refunds and was able to re-book 2 other flights all with Easyjet. Took a while for the first refund but they all acme pretty quickly after that.

Was able to rebook an Aer Lingus flight and got a voucher for another (flight wasn't cancelled) though it took nearly 3 months to get the voucher from them.

Zoom
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Re: Airline brinksmanship over Covid-19

Post by Zoom »

as expected I had to cancel Corsica (although they haven't actually confirmed if it's part of the France quarantine it's probably closer to the mainland than Ibiza so probably yes)

Managed to book an alternative trip but the return flights were full so had to book BA. eJ say today that anyone with a booking can get a voucher instead but to be honest getting a bit jaded of pushing all these trips into 2021 when there's no guarantee things will be any better.

They may well cancel the flight anyway but by that time I'll have lost the free flight change option....

Zoom
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Re: Airline brinksmanship over Covid-19

Post by Zoom »

Zoom wrote:
Fri 14 Aug 2020, 11:34 am
as expected I had to cancel Corsica (although they haven't actually confirmed if it's part of the France quarantine it's probably closer to the mainland than Ibiza so probably yes)

Managed to book an alternative trip but the return flights were full so had to book BA. eJ say today that anyone with a booking can get a voucher instead but to be honest getting a bit jaded of pushing all these trips into 2021 when there's no guarantee things will be any better.

They may well cancel the flight anyway but by that time I'll have lost the free flight change option....
After about a 40 minute wait I got a voucher for the value of the return flight valid 12 months, although it says I need to call Customer Services to redeem it :thermometer_face:

JacobTemp
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Re: Airline brinksmanship over Covid-19

Post by JacobTemp »

I have 3 return flights booked with easyJet this year; I doubt I will be on any of them (no way I'm going to Paris, Poland has locked everyone out and Corsica, well..)

Because they are flights only not an inclusive package I'll get almost nothing back on travel insurance, And because they are not cancelled I can't get a refund either.
I've been facing almost like those issues time to time couple of months ago as well, but then I've changed by airflight tickets operator, and that's how it's resolved. Now I always prefer to use this service ( airbusinessclass.com ), which is maybe the best airflight tickets operator I could find on the web.
Last edited by JacobTemp on Sat 19 Sep 2020, 8:49 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Zoom
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Re: Airline brinksmanship over Covid-19

Post by Zoom »

From now on I'm taking the Simon Calder approach, "a boarding pass is just a raffle ticket" and book at very short notice (ie after 0400 on Saturday if possible)

Low bookings make these a realistic option at the moment.

Annoyingly after having to book to fly back BA to LHR the flights to LGW via easyJet became available again, they however worked out more expensive even takin into account a hotel.