Dear Alex,
Last January I booked a £69 Bmi flight between London Heathrow and Leeds to attend a conference on April 27. I was flying into Heathrow that morning from Cairo with British Airways as Bmi’s schedules on this route were inconvenient.
On April 8, Bmi emailed me to say its Heathrow-Leeds route had been cancelled. As an alternative, it would either refund my fare or book me on to its Manchester flight at 1600 (almost three hours later than my original flight) and provide a taxi from there to Leeds.
I pointed out that I would now be arriving five hours later than planned, and asked if Bmi could instead book me on to an earlier British Airways flight to Manchester or pay for me to go London-Leeds by train.
Bmi refused, so I paid £116 for a London-Leeds train ticket, which got me there at 1535. Now Bmi will not refund the cost of my train fare. Is it acting correctly?
Nick McHard, Cairo
Alex replies:
As long as airlines give 14 days’ notice of a cancellation for commercial reasons, they need only refund your fare or provide a reasonable alternative. But “reasonable” means the flight need not be between the same airports, at the same time or even on the same day of travel. Bmi wouldn’t refund a rail ticket that cost twice the price of a flight.
Had you booked a through Cairo-Leeds ticket with Bmi, then it might have been more accommodating. When you buy two tickets, you enter into a separate contact with each carrier, so as far as Bmi was concerned you were taking a simple domestic trip. It’s of no concern to Bmi that your trip was more complicated in that you were flying in from Cairo.
In future, note the drawbacks of separate tickets and take care when booking well ahead because schedule changes can disrupt plans. Take Bmi’s £69 flight refund and put this down to experience.
