What are my rights? My flight has been rescheduled and I'll miss my connecting flight.

[Kimten]

Posting here for traffic.

I'm in the EU. I have to take two flights to my destination.
Air France has rescheduled my first flight to a later time and as a result, I'm going to miss my second Air France flight.
There are no suitable alternative flights.
I booked both flights together on the Air France website.
What are my rights, does anyone know?

I won’t say how long it took me to come up with somewhere as creative as Benidorm.

It’s been a long week.

It is all one booking and therefore is their responsibility to resolve. They need to find you an alternative for your first or second flight or compensate you accordingly if arrival time is significantly later than when you originally booked.

Make sure you do not lose any money from this - it is for them to fix

Lapland -> Benidorm
Benidorm -> Timbuktu

Last time I was supposed to fly Zurich-Helsinki, the airline cancelled the 1st leg kindly suggested that maybe I would want to have a 24h stopover in Istanbul instead?

Messaged Air France on FB.
They offered me some ridiculous alternative flights, all of which are thoroughly unsuitable.
I have applied for a refund.

Messaged them on Facebook? What a strange choice to communicate with them. Just CALL them

You need to speak to a proper booking agent who can find alternatives when you say 'no that's not going to work' and when all else fails ask them them to transfer you to another airline. The person in charge of FB is probably getting their info third hand.

Surely there's a million flights from UK by AF to CDG to get you to your connecting flight. There's certainly loads of other airlines who do. You need to press them to get you there!

I'm the EU, not in the UK.

My final destination is a city in Africa.
Not saying which because it's too outing.
Anyway, I've applied for a refund now.

Why did you not call them? Yes I realize I’m a dinosaur but FFS, there are literally really nice people waiting to help you?

Chat is horrible for this kind of thing.

Oh, so you are going to Timbuktu?

Ask them to put you on the route with a stopover in Benidorm. There's someone on this thread who can help you with that.

But as an aside, I agree that messaging the airline on FB wasn't the best way to try and sort this out and you really need to speak to them, it will usually be much easier resolved that way.

It's like when people suggest tweeting a company when they have a customer service issue. People shouldn't have to resort to the cesspit that is twitter and wash their dirty laundry in public to get help from a company and we shouldn't encourage them to work that way.

😂 this has to be a wind up.

Anyway, good luck getting a price to a flight to Africa for the same price you did 5 months ago.

Or you could just get the connecting flight changed when you actually CALL them. Not sure why you would risk your long haul for a the sake of the connecting flight, but anyway.

Call them!

'Call them' is the new 'cancel the cheque' 🙈

But she hasn’t called them!

Yeah we can process the refund for the OP ourselves, post on a forum and we fix all the problems no need to contact airlines, banks, shops, resturants, amazon etc.

If it's too outing to say where you're going I'm surprised they haven't cancelled that flight - only ever one person who has ever taken it ?😂

Well it's all still as clear as mud then....

@Cattlepillar

You should call Air France..they may be planning to hold the connecting flight if they've rebooked a significant number of passengers.

I guess it's worth the OP asking but for info unless the short haul feeder they are booked to be on is carrying multiple dozens for that Long haul outbound then IMO that's unlikely, mainly down due slot restrictions and also very much the knock effects.

For example if you delay the Long Haul departure to facilitate the inbound connections you then potentially screw over the connections of passengers at the far end of the Long Haul flight.

Contact air France see if you can get an earlier first flight

The city you’re travelling to is ‘outing’ FFS.

And waste an opportunity for an attention seeking AIBU?!

I'm the EU, not in the UK

So a bit like AirFrance then....

🙄

It's not a wind up.
It's me trying to get back to work on my due date. I won't get paid for the days that I miss at work.

I have been offered alternative flights by AF that involve 1:00 am get ups, or journeys with 2 connections across 3 airports and I was told I would have to pay the difference.
So I've put in a claim for a refund and booked a flight with another airline.

I was told I would have to pay the difference.
https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2022/06/30/what-are-your-rights-when-it-comes-to-flight-cancellations
Under EU law you're entitled to a new flight and the price is not your problem but theirs. You should have listened to people here. You were legally entitled to new flights. Asking for a refund will likely end up being more expensive given the originals flights were booked so long ago.
Air France is an European company. If you were flying from the EU not from the UK, EU laws apply.
I sense you're young! Good luck holding on to your money in the future...

Honestly why did you bother posting? We all told you what your rights are but you didn't seem to be the least bit interested and just took whatever option the airline first offered, probably paying a lot more from your own pocket.

Dude, it's a forum.
Not a court order. Calm down.

I've no idea what that's supposed to mean but its understandable that people would think it a bit odd to ask for advice then ignore it, in a court or anywhere else

What's the point?