Vueling Air--warning

That sounds like a frustrating experience - it's always annoying when flight plans go awry.

I don't know enough about intra-Europe flight schedules to say much about Vueling's rerouting of the cancelled flight. But I see that their hubs are in Rome and Barcelona, so it does make sense that any capacity they might have to accommodate extra passengers would be through those cities.

Since the flight was cancelled, your daughter is legally entitled to reject any proposed rerouting and claim a refund on the fare paid (see here; standard disclaimer, IANAL, etc.) That doesn't necessarily mean that Vueling won't try to give you a hard time about it, but if they do, you can cite the Regulation 261/2004, which is also mentioned in Vueling's conditions of carriage.

Vueling is a Spanish airline and as some of us know the Spanish are not keen on customer service. I've flown them once and try to avoid them myself. The flight went off without a hitch, but I arrived with no luggage, which I hear is a constant issue for them. However, they are not responsible for luggage handling so they are not entirely to blame for this. It wasn't until after I flew with them (because I also didn't look at their track record) that I realized I got super lucky. I'd rather fly with Ryan Air next time. Have done it several times and never really had any issues.

Thank you for the very helpful info!

Saloman,

Sounds like a nightmare!

I hope she’s safely back in London by now.

I told my daughter to forget it. I quickly found her a cheap one-way flight between Pisa and London on British Airways for the next afternoon and got her a hotel room for the last night in Florence. She's in the Pisa airport right now, waiting to board the flight.

This was a very smart move on your part, and exactly what I would have done if my daughter were in the same situation.

Sometimes it’s best to spend a bit more to get to one’s destination safely.

This reminds me of when my daughter was studying abroad. She and a friend decided to fly from Edinburgh to London to visit a mutual friend. When they arrived to the airport, to fly back to Edinburgh, they looked at the departure board and walked over to the boarding gate and waited. When it was time to board the plane, they were told that they were at the wrong gate! They, along with eight or ten other passengers, ran to the appropriate gate only to be denied boarding since the gate had just closed! She sent me a text telling me that they’d missed their flight. I was appalled as we’ve always arrived to airports hours before our flights.

Apparently there were two flights going to Edinburgh (separate carriers), at the same time, and they inadvertently didnt check the flight number.
They ended up buying new tickets (more expensive than original RT) for the following morning. They took the bus back to their friend’s apartment and got up extra early the next morning to get back to the airport.

Since your daughter’s flight was cancelled, you should get a refund, IMO.

Having said this, I wouldn’t waste much time doing so especially if it wasn’t an excessive amount of money. The airline may argue that they were willing to get your daughter to her destination, even if it meant traveling to their hub in Barcelona.

If she has travel insurance, you may get compensated for the cancelled flight, but only if you paid for such prior to purchasing the policy.

I hope your daughter enjoys her time in London, is she studying there?

All that busing and moving about sure sounds crazy to me!
I think you and her made the right decision.

My only experience with Vueling was positive ; only 1 inter Europe flight from Venice to Paris.
In Europe the rules about reimbursement are much better for the consumer than in the US so think you have a good chance of getting something.

My daughter has been studying in London for the past four months and is coming home tomorrow! It was supposed to be today, but because of the Vueling debacle she obviously could not make her flight home from Heathrow. Thank you all for the support. The Vueling ticket wasn't terribly expensive, but as I laid out for a new flight and a hotel room, I'm going to try pretty hard to recoup something.

The Florence airport does have problems with flights from time to time due to weather - because of where it is.

The airline response to the situation may not have been good - granted - but you should know that that isn't the first time a flight (of any operator) had to be canceled due to that issue. Pisa or Bologna are regular diversion airports.

Glad things are working out for her.

I’m sure you’re so excited and happy to see your daughter tomorrow!

My daughter studied in Edinburgh for 5 months, and when I traveled there to meet up with her we hugged each other and we both cried! The taxi driver waited patiently for me to return to pay him since I’d jumped out to greet her!

Happy homecoming!

Florence airport has a very short runway, and has instrumental approach only from the west side. When it was used by propeller planes and small jets you could have a bumpy approach and an hair-rising landing, but you mostly got on ground and off ground. Now that standard A319s are used, they work close to their limits and strong winds or bad weather are frequent causes for diversion - or in some cases, good reasons for denying boarding or not loading baggages; I could tell a few horror stories. Horror stories are more likely with low cost airlines like Vueling whose customer care is on the patchy side and may not have ground staff. Personally, I never use Vueling to/from Florence and if possible I use Pisa airport instead - that being a military airport with two long parallel runways gets closed only in extremely bad weather.

I guess the offered routing via Barcelona was because it was one of their home bases and would hence be more likely to have the capacity to absorb the cancellation.

If it was a genuine bad weather case then compensation would not be payable.

Vueling and Iberia also codeshare with British Airways, so maybe the could have put her on that later flight, if asked, or maybe it will make a refund easier at this point. I suppose they thought their solution was more expedient, or that they had more airplane capacity or hotel deals at those hub cities.

And also a lesson why planning to be in your intercontinental departure city the day before is repeatedly recommended here.

Looks like OP was planning that, and still got ambushed by circumstances.

Also a reason to have a 'single booking' rather than separate ones.

Not picking on OP as it appears theirs was a reasonable plan; just an example of what can go wrong and is random and unforeseeable.

Edited for grammar/clarity

Based on the circumstances you described, it appears that the weather-related problems were unavoidable. However, their handling of the problem appears to have been less-than-desired. It's hard to say why they chose the particular course of action that they did. Fortunately there are lots of alternative flights available in Europe, which you were able to use to solve the problem. For future reference, you also could have used easyJet from Pisa to either London Luton or Gatwick.

It could be worse - https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/flights/todayinthesky/2018/04/17/sun-country-faces-crisis-after-telling-stranded-mexico-fliers-find-own-way-home/523949002/

Even if Vueling isn't legally required to reimburse you for any more than the cost of the cancelled Vueling flight, you can always ask for reimbursement of some of your additional expenses as a courtesy. The worst they can do is say no.

I've had some success with this when a (domestic) flight was delayed several hours, and as a result I had to take a taxi home from the airport instead of the train. I asked the airline to reimburse my taxi fare, and they did.

In your case, the bad weather may not have been the airline's fault, but the fact that they took several hours to come up with a contingency plan arguably was. You could make the case that if they'd told passengers much earlier that alternate transport wasn't going to be available until the next day, you could have arranged an earlier flight on another carrier that would still have gotten your daughter to London in time for her original international connection. I doubt they'll pay you the whole cost of the new international flight, but they might pay you something.