Change to flights - where do I stand?

[FrangipaniBlue]

Hoping someone might be more knowledgeable than what I've been able to find on Google.......

Recently had our return flights from the US cancelled due to a tropical storm closing the airport for 2 days.

Airline were very good in that they kept us up to date, regular contact, re-arranged everything with minimal fuss, all good.

BUT

During the closure, 4 flights were cancelled - 2 to Manchester and 2 to Heathrow. When the airports re-opened our airline only rescheduled 2 flights, 1 to Manchester and 1 to Heathrow.

As a result, they were unable to offer us a like for like replacement flight. We were instead given the choice between:

A) flight to Manchester but significant downgraded class + partial refund

B) flight to Heathrow in the same class + onward connection to Manchester

We decided that option A was just not viable. DH is 6' 3" and we had a 3hr drive home from Manchester, so one of the reasons we booked the seats we did was so that he could be comfortable, get at least some rest and safely drive. The airline couldn't even offer us extra legroom seats if we had gone with option A.

Now in my mind the airline have breached our contract - not because they were unable to fly due the storm, but because they chose to reduce the number of flights on rescheduling.

It was their actions (decision?) that resulted in us taking an indirect route with a total journey time of 14hrs, when what we had paid for was a direct route taking only 8hrs.

They will also presumably have saved money by only operating 2 instead of 4 flights!

Should we be entitled to compensation/partial refund ?

Look up EU261 which sets out the rules for compensation. It is still applicable in the UK despite Brexit although it only applies to UK airlines leaving the US not
US airlines.

The cancellation was outside the airline's control so they are not required to pay compensation. They still owe you a duty of care to provide accommodation and an alternative means to get to your final destination which they did. As it happens they could have forced you to take option A. You choose option
B so you have no entitlement to further recourse.

There is an EU261 forum on Flyertalk which will tell you everything you need to know.

Thank you, that makes sense.

That rule is what I found online but I wasn't sure whether their duty of care was just simply to get us to our destination or whether they had a duty to get us there "in a like for like manner".

I totally understand that the cancellation wasn't their fault but the reason they couldn't accommodate us was because they subsequently CHOSE to reduce the number of flights.

They've saved money but we've been inconvenienced, which just doesn't seem right to me..... lol

I maybe should've been clearer - I don't expect compensation for the cancellation, but should we not be compensated for them not being able to offer a like for like alternative?

I’m not sure the distinction you are drawing is one that will really fly (excuse the pun). Your flight was cancelled due to circumstances out with their control. Bearing in mind that they probably had dozens of flights to reschedule and that delays like this really do cause major logistical issues with planes and pilots and crew now all being in the wrong place, I think it would be tough to show that they didn’t provide a reasonable alternative.

If I understand you correctly the loss you suffered was having to take a connecting flight from Heathrow to Manchester rather than going direct to Manchester in your chosen class - I’m not sure that’s all that material in circumstances where the main problem surely was getting you back from the US?

My experience is us airlines give nothing. We had our flight New York to Chicago cancelled and we’re stuck in an airport for 28 hours before we gave up (we were number 46 in a queue where only one or two people made any flight and we had 3 young dc with us). We hired a car and drove 11 hours paying £1700 for car hire. Airline refunded us our flight but minus admin fees we only saw £275. US airlines customer service is awful. Hopefully you’ll have better luck. We tried using our credit card legal team who were optimistic but then admitted defeat.

www.flyertalk.com/forum/british-airways-executive-club/2031697-2021-22-ba-compensation-thread-your-guide-regulation-ec261-2004-a.html

Yes that's right @Fleur405 the additional flight meant our journey from the US to Manchester took 14+hrs instead of 8hrs.

I know the catalyst for the change was the storm, but the airline chose to reduce the number of flights available.

The cynic in me says it was to save money rather than fly planes with empty seats. Totally their prerogative, but you'd think they would pass some of that saving on to those of us who were inconvenienced by their decision.....

If my rescheduled flight had been the same class and directly onto Manchester, albeit a day late due to the storm, then I wouldn't have expected any compensation at all.

I've just checked back through my emails....

I have an email from them confirming that our flight was rescheduled for Friday into Manchester.

It was a couple of hours later they emailed again saying we were being moved to the Heathrow flight.

Would this not class as re-routing ?

Well the system for compensation has clear rules.

The airline needed to get you back to your destination and pay for your extra accommodation, food and transport to airport costs during the time you were delayed.

The compensation part goes out of the window if the delay wasn't due to the airline. And it wasn't - was due to a storm which was outside their control.

If you're trying to say that the increase in flight time because you were rerouted counts as a wholly separate delay incident which is due to the airline not flying as many planes and therefore their fault and should lead to compensation, I don't think that works at all. You could have taken option A but chose the other option for personal reasons, that's not down to the airline.

Also, I think like for like means "on a plane" here.

It's a nightmare to reschedule planes, especially if their are flying into/out of busy airports. The planes and crew they needed won't have been in the right place for starters, and the tiniest delay can totally disrupt the flight schedule never mind a 2 day tropical storm delay. You still need a slot to land an empty plane don't you!

I don’t think they ‘chose’ to put on less flights.

for arguments sake let’s say 100 planes a day take off from your US airport, each is scheduled into a window to fly, so that they get their own space, time and crew on the runway, so that the ground staff can prepare the plane, so that air traffic control can appropriately monitor and guide the plane and so it doesn’t cross paths with another plane from any other country while in the air.

day one of closed airport means that on the day the airport reopens all the planned flights need to leave plus 100 additional displaced flights.
day two of closed airports means that on the day the airport reopens there are now 100 planned flights plus 200 displaced flights to try and schedule in. It’s not possible, so airlines are forced to trim their planned flights, do their best to reorganise passengers and unfortunately let some passengers down

There wasn't an exact replacement available.
They offered you two choices, so you could decide which was more important to you - seat pitch or direct route.
If 2 planes were sufficient for all the people, ok not quite in the right proportions, why fly 4?

I would guess that the reduction in flights was forced on the airline due to landing slot availability after the storm. It was unlikely to be out of choice. Therefore I suggest that the airline did everything they could to get you back home so no compensation would be available.

I can guarantee the airline will not be saving money by putting on fewer flights because of huge disruption. Their contract with you is to get you from A to B in one piece, which they managed to do, and although the route and timing was slightly different to what you had booked it is within the bounds of acceptable. As others have already pointed out, once there is a delay with aircraft and airports, it leads to a cascade of problems with aircraft and crew being in the wrong places. It takes a huge amount of organisation to get everything back to where it should be.