Problems With Plane Schedule Changes—What to Do?

Which airlines? Call them talk to a live person though you will probably be on hold a while

Also when something similar happened to me recently you should be entitled to a refund and the airline should have said this somewhere in the notification.

(I didn't see the 1st reply until after I'd posted mine)
Seems like the airline's cancellation of the 2nd leg gives you reasonable grounds to ask the airline to cancel your flight with a full refunf, so that you can book another airline(s) (obviously, only if there is another flight.
Seems like the airline should step up here. But I wouldn't wait too long for the airline to respond to your e-mail, those probably get lost.
But if you phone an airline ticketing agent and assertively ask for a cancellation and full refund, that will at least get their attention and force them to say yes or no.

Before you go down the route of cancellation and requesting a refund you’d better see what another flight would cost. It may be that the cost of losing your prepaid hotel (hopefully just one night) outweighs a new flight.

Alan makes a good point.

EU261 May apply. I am no expert, but I think you are protected by European law.

It is KLM, partners w/Delta, whom we are using to fly to & from Hawaii to Europe. The only phone #s to call on their website is in Holland & who knows it they speak English or how long the call would last or cost. I'm hesitant to call them.

I've read & re-read their notice & it doesn't say anything about refunds or giving us alternate flights.

I've checked into other flights & doing a train/ferry to get to Southampton & there really aren't any that will work for us/get us to Isle of Wight (IOW) any sooner. I've also checked flying from Marseille, FR to London Heathrow, then taking a train to Southampton & IF we got a refund the cost would be comparable & we could get to IOW early evening.

KLM 1-800 number :tel:18006180104

Definitely call KLM! In June we had problems with the ticketing of one member of our group. The agents speak fluent English and, at least in our experience, were very helpful in resolving the problem. Time is on your side--but you definitely want this resolved now so you can go back to the enjoyment of trip planning!

With the state of BREXIT right now it is hard to say how things will be next year:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/flights-to-and-from-the-uk-if-theres-no-brexit-deal/flights-to-and-from-the-uk-if-theres-no-brexit-deal

Call! Every time I've had an airline make a problematic change, I have called and they have moved me to a better flight. You may get booked on different flights on both parts - with a layover elsewhere if Amsterdam is no longer offered on your date.

As posted above, it's a 800 number so no cost and big airlines like KLM always have English as an option.

If push comes to shove you can probably cancel without fee, but then you'd need to buy a new ticket, so make sure availability is OK.

I can't see any direct flights from Lyon to Southampton, but it maybe much quicker and far less risky to fly direct from Lyon to London Heathrow or Gatwick and then take the train to Southampton.

There are direct flights from Lyon to Southampton with Flybe from 25 March, but this is only a maximum of 4 times a week, and get in late in the evening.

Lyon to Gatwick (easyJet or BA Sat and Sun only) and then a direct train to Southampton might work out best, although the easyJet flight is early in the day.

Many thanks to all that responded. I will call KLM this afternoon, after checking possible alternatives, & get back to you. Thank you so much!

www.skyscanner.com
Good for European one-way flights.
It shows plenty of Air France service, connecting through Charles de Gaulle, to Southampton. None on KLM, though (I looked at April/19).

Air France and KLM are owned by the same company and have co-ordinated schedules. They and Delta operate closely for trans-Atlantic. But I doubt Delta can help you on European flights unless your whole tour out of Hawaii was bought together.

If KLM sold the ticket to Southampton, a patient wait on the phone might pay off with an acceptable flight on AF.

I want to say KLM customer service call for North America redirect to Delta reps as part of the joint venture agreement.

Update: I called the 1-800 phone # listed above. Per Lorraine they cannot help us as we booked the flight via the KLM website & have to deal with KLM ourselves.
We did get an E-mail response from KLM, they want us to call them in The Netherlands. We cannot make international calls & it ends up we send our complaint to Delta ([email protected]) not the KLM.comnl website.
I have now sent the request to KLM. Wish us luck!

One thing gained from the call to Delta was their fixing our problem w/our flights returning to Hawaii. In the past their customer service has been great & they proved it once again.--Debbie

Check the technology threads. A poster explains how you can use Google Hangouts to call locally and overseas for free.

Try contacting the airline on Twitter. I have had fairly good luck that way with carriers based outside my own country.

I had good luck using Facebook messaging when Air France cancelled a Rome>CDG>SFO flight -- works better if you can give them a specific solution. (We took a flight out of Rome the afternoon prior, stayed overight at CDG on our own dime and flew home on an earlier flight.)

I'd try and figure out how to make international calls and talk to KLM. A paid app on your phone that allows you to call another cell phone or landline internationally(Skype, Viber) will come in very handy on your trip to call ahead or phone home. Or, contact your cell phone carrier for a temporary international calling plan.

GREAT NEWS!!!! Delta Airlines just called w/news that KLM will give us a full refund for the trip!!! They are supposed to have the monies credited to our credit card w/in 10 days.
For the record, we did not have to call KLM internationally, Delta & KLM handled it all.

As it is difficult to find flight connections from Avignon, FR to Isle of Wight, UK, we've decided to take the high speed trains & ferry all of the way. It'll save us >$150 & may even be a shorter trip.

Thanks again for all of your help, Debbie

Happy ending! Merry Christmas!

There are those nationalities in Europe where you can count on their speaking English, like to speak English, or don't mind speaking English, eg, the Dutch, and there are those who are less willing to speak it, or at most, don't always rely on their ability to have a certain level to speak it.

EU261 May apply. I am no expert, but I think you are protected by European law.

It wouldn't apply in this case because there was sufficient notice given. We experienced this with a BA flight to Mallorca over Christmas. We were advised in the summer that the flight had changed to another day, so we changed the hotel booking and car hire at our own expense as BA would not cover it. We then received an email the following week that the flight had been completely cancelled and there was no alternative. No compensation offered but a full refund given. We booked on Easyjet instead.

I figure that any truly global company will have a language list for interacting with customers that includes English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin Chinese and possibly German.