More BA nonsense

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Viewing 14 posts - 1 through 14 (of 14 total)

  • Montysaurus
    Participant

    I received an email from BA yesterday saying the return leg of a return flight LHR to Vancouver had been cancelled. I phoned BA yesterday evening and very quickly got through to an extremely helpful person who rebooked my return for 2 days later. He also rebooked my outward leg so that the trip was the same length as originally planned. He rearranged my seats on both flights at the same time. This morning I changed my flexible hotel bookings to suit.
    This afternoon I received another email from BA to say that the outward leg had now been cancelled. Both out and back were a single booking with one booking reference number.
    Can anyone calm me down by explaining the logic of cancelling the return leg of a booking, allowing their staff to rebook it for 2 days later and then cancelling the outward leg?


    Fair2380
    Participant

    Probably because their network planners don’t base decisions on a single pax booking….


    Montysaurus
    Participant

    Thanks Fair. You have calmed me down a little. I still wonder at the logic of rearranging a route schedule by amending one direction first and then the other a day later. Surely both should be done at the same time?

    1 user thanked author for this post.

    AisleSeatTraveller
    Participant

    An actual person is not involved, it’s robotics.

    I had this where one leg was cancelled and rebooked, to arrive after the connection had left (the connection was not rebooked, therefore a call was needed, where the very helpful agent said it was a known problem)

    Happened twice, very stressful


    DavidSmith2
    Participant

    I had a similar experience a couple of months ago with Turkish Airlines – they obviously use the same algorithm.


    FaroFlyer
    Participant

    No sure why it is BA nonsense. They will look at load factors and cancel some flights on a rolling basis. They do not have 1 person sitting looking at bookings.

    It can also work out in the passenger favour. I had flights booked for last month FAO > LGW and next day LGW > LAS. They cancelled FAO > LGW and I telephoned immediately to request a refund as my initial sector had been cancelled. Actually, I did not want to travel as the trade show had already been cancelled. Cancellation was accepted by a helpful lady, and I was glad that she did not look at the detail as my first sector had been replaced with FAO > LHR and there was a same day connection LHR > LAS which, logically, would be better.


    Montysaurus
    Participant

    FaroFlyer
    My problem is I am an engineer and engineering logic clearly doesn’t align with airline algorithmic logic. I take back the “nonsense” bit of the title. It should have read “more BA sense”. I do believe, however, that it must be a bit disheartening for their staff to deal with.

    1 user thanked author for this post.

    Inquisitive
    Participant

    With the present load factors, cancellations of international flight is very common.
    It is not complex algorithm, the flights are cancelled by many airlines.
    As long as they return the full ticket cost, then it is okay.

    In normal time, BA would have surely have regular flight or they would have tried to provide alternatives for a canceled flight.


    Carajillo2Sugar
    Participant

    It’s nothing to do with your return flight, so don’t feel victimised. As far as the ‘system’ is concerned, each journey is just a one-way sector. You just happened to get caught up in the aftermath of two separate cancellations.


    Montysaurus
    Participant

    I perhaps allowed my frustration to get the better of me when I made my original post. In BA’s support I must point out that on both occasions when I called to try to sort the matter out the people I spoke to were sympathetic and very helpful.


    alainboy56
    Participant

    @Montysaurus
    I sympathise with you, being also of the same ilk.

    As my recently departed Father-in-Law used to say, and I will try to paraphrase his Finnish humour …
    “Nothing is as intelligent as a human brain, except an Engineer’s”
    Needless to say, he was also was from the world of Engineering.

    It is nonetheless disappointing that even in this Hi-Tech world, they cannot program computers to use algorithms with logic and ‘common sense’.

    I once a few years ago had a similar example with QR on a quick return trip AUH-DOH-Seychelles.
    I had planned to be there 2 clear days leaving on the 3rd day morning.
    The flight DOH-SEZ was cancelled for some reason, so as I am an elite FFP with QR, they had re-routed me via Jo’burg that first day evening, with a connection on the 2nd day evening to SEZ, thereby arriving just 3 hours before my ‘unchanged’ original return trip on the 3rd day morning.
    Which made absolutely ‘No Sense’ at all from the ‘system’.

    Needless to say, I got it all rebooked sensibly for a few days later at my local QR Office in Al Ain (sadly now long gone), even before the embargo/blockade.

    2 users thanked author for this post.

    MartynSinclair
    Participant

    [quote quote=1038402]With the present load factors, cancellations of international flight is very common.[/quote]

    This creates a challenging dilemma. Not wishing to night stop currently, I am looking at scheduling of a few short haul day trips to meet clients for airport meetings. My concern now is there appears no guarantee BA will run the return service if the loading is low. Presumably there is no way to know in advance….

    Any clues or ideas… (besides stay at home 🙂 ) ?


    SimonS1
    Participant

    [postquote quote=1042191][/postquote]

    Interesting one Martyn. There is someone on the FT board who tried a back to back to Doha for an airport meet and was refused boarding.

    Its more likely to work on a domestic but as you say obvious risks that one of the flights will be cancelled due to poor demand. The only (rather obvious) advice is to choose somewhere were you might have a later flight to move to.

    Of course in a worst case EC261 applies to cancellations >14 days.


    FRANCESCABARNES
    Participant

    Not just BA, Easyjet doing it frequently. I had single sectors cancelled 3 times before I eventually got my travel sorted.

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