My daughters and I just came back from a wonderful trip to England. We flew Airtransat. Now I booked and paid for direct flights, Vancouver to Gatwick. They made several changed to our outgoing flight and finally, our 9 hour flight became a 12hour flight stopping in Edmonton which added 3 hours to the trip. My question is, is it worth pursuing the company for compensation? I obviously did not get the direct flight I paid for. Thanks for any suggestions
Posted by
Freedonia
15090 posts
No...you paid for a ticket from Vancouver to London. Somewhere in the small print it says the airline has the right to change its flight schedule. Don't waste your time...this is a common occurrence. You won't get anything.
Posted by
OP
Langley, B.C., Canada
103 posts
That's all I needed to hear. Thank you
Posted by
Florida, USA
12172 posts
As Frank said, roll with it. It's happening a lot these days. As long as you end up where you are going at about the right time, you're doing well. It kind of stinks going from a non-stop though. I had one that changed to a one-night layover in Minneapolis, then changed again to a one-night layover in Amsterdam and finally went back to almost the original schedule (no layover).
Posted by
Seattle, USA
990 posts
This is happening more and more. It's one reason I book through my travel agent--she keeps me abreast of changes and is in a better position than I am to argue with airlines who screw around with my schedule. For example, US Air once changed my connection from a West Coast-Europe flight from a three hour layover in Philadelphia to a next day onward flight. She got right back to them and persuaded them to send me out on a United flight to catch my original departure to Europe. It saved a day of my trip.
I'm not saying that I couldn't have gotten this done by calling the airline myself. Assuming that I could get a phone number and could get through to a live person and that the person in question had authority to override the automatic re-schedule. Maybe it would have been fine. But for a 25 dollar fee, I let my travel agent run interference for me.
Posted by
Puyallup, WA, USA
881 posts
Hi, Melanie. Yes, the posts above are right, it's in the fine print. The airline does not guarantee (nor are the legally liable to) the actual flights.
HOWEVER, there are exceptions the airlines chose themselves. You find this in their "tariff rules" or "conditions of carriage". Unfortunately, the link to airtransat's is dead right now. (lol). If the added another connection/stop, that is one many airlines will give minor compensation for.
If you really want to follow it up, you call call them and ask them for the conditions of carriage or tariff rules. Honestly, don't know that it would be worth your time though.
Posted by
Santa Rosa, CA, USA
1446 posts
One year when we were flying to Europe, we made our reservations right when the window opened and were able to get bulk head seats with lots of leg room. One week before we were scheduled to fly, they changed the flight time and the plane type - configuration was different, and we lost our good seats. They would do nothing about it; however, when we got to the airport to check in, they upgraded us (free) to Coach Plus - thank goodness! We are scheduled to go again in one week, and I'm holding my breath that nothing changes.