Swiss Airlines Cancelled Flight

Since Swiss doesn’t actually fly between Denver and Salt Lake City, I am guessing that leg was operated by their star Alliance partner, United. If United cancelled the flight, Swiss might not have any other options on partner airlines.

Six months is a lot of advance notice so you are fortunate that you have time to find another option. This is the disadvantage of booking so far in advance; airlines change their routes and schedules.

Since Delta has a large presence at SLC, I’d see what options they have. You often have more choices with the dominant carrier and its partners. If a route gets cancelled, they generally have more alternatives to get you to your destination.

If the ticket isn't already refunded, try a routing via Chicago.

Airfares for September are pretty cheap now, you could end up saving money.

Delta is a great suggestion; they have a good presence at SLC (a friend of ours is a pilot who flew international flights from there).

Looking at random dates in late August/September, I see flights to Zurich with one stop in either Amsterdam, Atlanta, or JFK ranging from $1277-$1650 round trip. Of course your actual dates may be different, but these are some indication of what you might expect.

And as Laura says, it was United that canceled your short flight, and Swiss apparently had no other option to offer.

Airlines cancel flights all the time. It's just part of modern air travel. They also reschedule flights all the time. I doubt that United has stopped flying between Denver and SLC altogether. You might want to do a little research to see if you could re-create your original itinerary (assuming you would like to), note all the details of a preferred alternative (and have them available to feed to the agent you get), then call United (or whoever you booked your flight through originally), explain what happened, and see if they can re-assemble your flight itinerary for you. You may have to make some adjustments to the schedule but it may be worth a call.

It looks like Edelweiss (actual operator of the Swiss DEN>ZRH flight) is ending service to/from DEN on September 23. They were flying twice a week. Time to try another option to Zurich. Looks like United through SFO is the low price option, although it is backtracking and the change times are long.

Here in Switzerland, we would for the most part consider Swiss to be a budget airline... so not really a surprise at least to me.

The big as-yet-unanswered question: With whom did the OP book their flights? Directly with SWISS? With their partner United? Or...somewhere else? Could make a difference in what options you have.

Delta is just as bad. I am dealing with their fiasco now. They changed our itinerary to an unacceptable one, and the last leg they cannot get us to our destination. It is a really long convoluted story, involving miles, but basically Delta sold us a ticket that they cannot get us to our destination, even with their convoluted itinerary change. So they said our best bet is to go part way, and then buy new tickets to get to our destination. Hmmm, I already paid for that, grrr.

I can understand various flight changes, to a degree, but some of this is just plain unethical, IMO.

Interesting comments, I'm glad I asked. So we did book through Swiss Airlines but United is the flight from Denver to SLC. Swiss Airlines did not give us any options to rebook, only a refund. We usually fly Delta and have never had any cancelled flights only flight times changed and rarely at that. I guess we've been lucky. Thank you for all the information!

mrsg4s--Delta has gotten worse the last two years or so, in our experience. This time adding in another stop and a 7 hour layover, that still did not get us to our destination was the kicker.

You have to wonder if Delta and other airlines are just getting cash infusions when they sell tickets on flights that later have the routing or the flight times butchered. Travelers buy a ticket that works for them and pay for it in advance expecting the deal to be honored.
In a way, the Airlines are getting potential customers to lend them money in the form of interest-free loans to the Airlines on the customer’s dime and credit card.
Then, with hotels and attractions and maybe trains reserved for their trips, customers are left scrambling to replace their plane tickets at considerably more cost than the original ticket they bought. In some cases, the airlines are free to re-sell the seats at higher prices on the flights the original customers took refunds on.
It isn’t right, and new regulations to protect the public are needed.

I'm so sorry to hear that. We flew Delta last year to Greece and everything was on time, but I guess that was a fluke. They have always been our reliable airline, I'm sad to hear they are doing that to people.

Luckily we did not buy any train tickets yet and all our hotel reservations are refundable.

Glad to hear that!