Would British Airways "bump" economy passengers to re-sell seats during snow delays ?

mikedublin

Hi,

I am just wondering if anyone with inside knowledge of operations within big airlines like British Airways would have an opinion on this ?

Do big airlines try and get connecting passengers reservations cancelled in order to re-sell the seats during events like the recent snow ?

The background to my question - me and a group of other passengers from Ireland were due to travel on a tour to China last Wednesday (22/12). All booked and paid for through "The Travel Department" months ago.

The flight was on one ticket - Aer Lingus to Heathrow, and then BA to Beijing. (so our bags were tagged through to Beijing and we got our boarding passes at Dublin for both flights. So - we had checked in for the Beijing flight in plenty of time). And BA's system would have known we were in transit but coming.

Anyway - the Aer Lingus flight was the 12.10 , and it was delayed due to the snow and de-icing and a rather long taxi, but it got away at 3.00 and we landed at heathrow just at 4.

Now - straight after we were allowed to turn on our phones we all started getting messages from The Travel Department to say we had missed the connecting flight and to come back to Ireland. Not to go to Terminal 5 and to go straight to Aer Lingus and be re-booked back to Dublin and the whole trip was cancelled.

As you can imagine we were very unhappy about that, and so we decided as a group to go to Terminal 5 anyway and see what could be done., so we did and queued up for a very long time , before we finally got to a counter. Anyway we were told we couldn't be re-booked. And we went back to Aer Lingus to see if they could do anything and they couldn't either. We were also all on the phone non-stop to The Travel Department but they couldn't or wouldn't do anything either.

So in the end we all came home. No holiday, (and in my case still no luggage).

Now - I've been thinking about this ever since then (not much else to do since the Christmas holiday was ruined), and I wonder would British Airways have been benifiting from us missing that connection and they could then re-sell those seats at last minute prices ?

I thought that once a passenger had started their journey on a through ticket, that if one of the connecting flights was delayed , then they would have to re-book or re-route the passengers to get them to complete their journey somehow, (yes later or via some other connecting airports). But that they would have to do that re-book rather than just cancelling once the journey has already started.

I'm suspicious, because I've seen previously at aiprorts staff calling out for passengers with tight connections as they come off the first flight, to activly help them make their connection. Whereas in our case The Travel Department was texting and calling us to tell us we had missed the connecting flight even before we had actually missed it (we landed at 4, and the Beijing flight was at 4.30).

My question is - would an airline like British Airways seeing it can re-sell seats of connecting passengers who are running late , activly encourage the tour operator (who booked the seats originally) to cancel their bookings ?

Terrontress

I'd be surprised if they'd risk their reputation by doing anything so underhand.

mikedublin

Terrontress wrote: »

I'd be surprised if they'd risk their reputation by doing anything so underhand.

Thats what I would have thought, but i just can't understand why they wouldn't rebook or reroute us when we were already in transit.

I've used BA countless times before and never ever had any problems before.

scudzilla

What sort of timescale are ya looking at here?

I mean, what time were you due to land at Heathrow and what time were you due to depart for China?

BuffyBot

No they wouldn't, and can't. May even be possible that the flight went out with your seats empty if they couldn't find anyone else who needed to be on the flight to fill them so as to make the slot they'd been given.

As BA were allowing blanket free changes to customers during the disruption, there was nothing to "sell" to other people. Anyone else who was present would have been changed on to that flight if they needed to be, and you were offloaded from the flight manifest as no shows.

You should have been re-routed or accomodated until you could be flown out. No one here was there, but by agreeing to fly home it could have been construed by the airline staff that you just wanted the trip cancelled. Personally I would have stood my ground until and not left Heathrow until someone had sorted me out with onward bookings/hotel accomodation and meal vouchers.

ScouseMouse

mikedublin wrote: »

Anyway - the Aer Lingus flight was the 12.10 , and it was delayed due to the snow and de-icing and a rather long taxi, but it got away at 3.00 and we landed at heathrow just at 4.

(we landed at 4, and the Beijing flight was at 4.30).

Does EI still land at terminal 1?

How long does it take to disembark at T1, get a transfer to T5, get through security, and get onboard the onward flight?

I think BA looked at this while you were still in Dublin and knew you wouldn't make it - even if you had your boarding cards already. Surely you would still have had to go through security again?

When they made the decision, they may not even have had a confirmed take off time for your flight out of Dublin.

Feel sorry your holiday was cancelled, but the weather was extreme to say the least.

mikedublin

scudzilla wrote: »

What sort of timescale are ya looking at here?

I mean, what time were you due to land at Heathrow and what time were you due to depart for China?

We were booked on EI162 due to depart Dublin at 12.10 arrive LHR at 13.30

Then there should have been a 3 hour transit time before the departure of BA39 from T5 at 16.30

The delay began at 12.00 and at first was just 30 minutes, then 1 hour, then in the end we took off at 3. The flight time was 50 mins, and we were at the gate at 4.

The thing I don't understand (and am trying to find out) is why BA wouldn't re-book us on a later flight, (even days later) rather than cancelling it.

scudzilla

mikedublin wrote: »

We were booked on EI162 due to depart Dublin at 12.10 arrive LHR at 13.30

Then there should have been a 3 hour transit time before the departure of BA39 from T5 at 16.30

The delay began at 12.00 and at first was just 30 minutes, then 1 hour, then in the end we took off at 3. The flight time was 50 mins, and we were at the gate at 4.

The thing I don't understand (and am trying to find out) is why BA wouldn't re-book us on a later flight, (even days later) rather than cancelling it.

That is what should have happened, but reading your OP it seems BA must have contacted The Travel Department, who made the decision to cancel, as it was they who sent you the texts/mails. Maybe i'm wrong but i doubt it

mikedublin

scudzilla wrote: »

That is what should have happened, but reading your OP it seems BA must have contacted The Travel Department, who made the decision to cancel, as it was they who sent you the texts/mails. Maybe i'm wrong but i doubt it

Do you think The Travel Department might have wanted to cancel the tour anyway ? And then just used the missed connection as an excuse ?

scudzilla

mikedublin wrote: »

Do you think The Travel Department might have wanted to cancel the tour anyway ? And then just used the missed connection as an excuse ?

Doubtful, if they wanted to cancel it they'd have to issue full refunds, therefore not making any profit. Stupid move on there part.

mikedublin

scudzilla wrote: »

Doubtful, if they wanted to cancel it they'd have to issue full refunds, therefore not making any profit. Stupid move on there part.

Yes - good point. And I guess that brings me back to my original wondering of who benifits from what happened, and the only ones I can see are BA.

scudzilla

mikedublin wrote: »

Yes - good point. And I guess that brings me back to my original wondering of who benifits from what happened, and the only ones I can see are BA.

IMO The Travel Dept were spot on, going from the info you gave.

IF they had rescheduled your outbound flights for 2/3 days later you'd still have to return on the original date, that would have thrown any tours and all there scheduling into chaos. I know that if i had a 10 day trip booked and it was shortened by 3 days i'd rather have it cancelled till a later date when i could do the whole trip.

Hope ya get it sorted?

RockMan94

I could also imagine not they are such a reputable business

mikedublin

Hopefully I'll be able to find out exactly what happened and why. Thanks for the answers.

Foggy43

You said you landed at 4pm and the BA039 to PEK was at 4.30pm. You and your group touched down as boarding was in progress and check in closed. As it is extremely unlikely you would get from Terminal 1 to 5 in less than half an hour I would think more than lightly passengers from previous days cancellations were called and got the seats.

I honestly cannot tell you if BA039 flew that day. Nomally BA039 is a daily service. I was in Terminal 5 on the 22nd and the B777's were being used on shorthaul and Eazyjet were covering some shorthaul routes for BA. It may not have flown for a few days?

At the moment I am in Ireland on leave so I do not have access to FICO and cannot see what actually happened.

mikedublin

Foggy43 wrote: »

You said you landed at 4pm and the BA039 to PEK was at 4.30pm. You and your group touched down as boarding was in progress and check in closed. As it is extremely unlikely you would get from Terminal 1 to 5 in less than half an hour I would think more than lightly passengers from previous days cancellations were called and got the seats.

I honestly cannot tell you if BA039 flew that day. Nomally BA039 is a daily service. I was in Terminal 5 on the 22nd and the B777's were being used on shorthaul and Eazyjet were covering some shorthaul routes for BA. It may not have flown for a few days?

At the moment I am in Ireland on leave so I do not have access to FICO and cannot see what actually happened.

Thanks very much for that information. Yes - we had accecpted that we had missed the connection that day, it was that they didn't help us to get an alternative days flight, or re-route that is the thing I am upset about. Our group had been told when we went to T5 that there were seats on a various flights that we could have been moved to the next day or so (Qantas via Hong Kong and then Dragonair to Beijing, or SAS and Air China via Stockholm), or standby on the BA39 the next day (which was running), but for some reason BA couldn't or wouldn't re-book us on them. It seemed like BA were blaming Aer Lingus, Aer Lingus were blaming The Travel Department, and The Travel Department were blaming the airlines.

amdublin

I think BA checked all connecting passengers and made a decision you would not make flight in time and bumped you. Nothing to do with reselling tickets etc, purely not to delay the flight.

Any time this has happened the airline has booked me on their next flight.

But! When was the next flight??
Would this have worked with the TD schedule once you arrived there eg. Would you have missed first leg of coach / tour in china??

I've never been accommodated on another airlines flight tbh.

Maybe it is in you terms and conditions that once you miss a connection the TD will cancel - because it is impossible to get your tour back on track?

Very sorry op, what a disaster but I don't actually think this was either companies fault tbh...

mikedublin

amdublin wrote: »

But! When was the next flight??
Would this have worked with the TD schedule once you arrived there eg. Would you have missed first leg of coach / tour in china??

The next direct BA flight was the next day at 16.30 , and while we would have missed the first day of the tour, there was not much due to happen that day anyway.

We would have been happy to get a taxi from the airport ourselves and get to the Hotel. The group was to be in Beijing for 5 days, so even a 2 or 3 day delay would have still been possible.

The visas we all had to get are only valid for 3 months, and as far as I can see there are no other companies doing tours over the next couple of months so its not something like we can say we'll go again in a few weeks.

LashingLady

I would be absolutely livid as obviously you are. Did the Travel Department give any rationale for just cancelling your whole trip? Have you read the T&C's to see if there is anything re missed connections? They probably haven't been open since this whole fiasco, but what a pain in the ass seeing as you probably had time booked off work etc. If there's nothing in the contract I would demand that they allow you to book a similar trip with them in the future with some level of discount tbh.

mikedublin

LashingLady wrote: »

I would be absolutely livid as obviously you are. Did the Travel Department give any rationale for just cancelling your whole trip? Have you read the T&C's to see if there is anything re missed connections? They probably haven't been open since this whole fiasco, but what a pain in the ass seeing as you probably had time booked off work etc. If there's nothing in the contract I would demand that they allow you to book a similar trip with them in the future with some level of discount tbh.

The Travel Department are basiclly blaming the airlines , and are saying they (the Travel Department) acted in good faith, so its our tough luck. They say we'll get a refund in the new year, but it still won't make up for the ruined Christmas

rugbyman

Mike , bad luck came your way.

Two questions /statements

1 i think it is unlikely there were seats available on the BA flight the next day due to time of year

2 I think you were lucky that AER Lingus got you home, surely all their flights were full to Dublin.

3 dont want to seem even a bit narky, but if I were on that trip i would have been planning to enjoy my breakfast in Heathrow at about half ten or so.


the whole subject of bumping people or flights fascinates me, but their is not much evidence of it afaik.

My colleagues and I fly quite a bit. Ryanair claim to never cancel flights without a valid reason. We joke that they have a tecnichan who can be relied on to find a technical fault.

happy New year all

Rugbyman

notuslimited

Take a look at Flightaware.com. It shows that BA039 left at 16:41 (not too sure if this was the time the aircraft left the gate or got airborne). You will also note that this flight had been cancelled on the 18th, 19th and 20th of December. Therefore it is reasonable to assume the following:

1) You would never have made your BA flight with the connecting time you had on the 22nd.

2) Chances are that BA would have been aware from the IT system that your group was delayed on the inbound EI flight and most likely gave your seats to passengers on standby from the cancelled flights.

3) I reckon that BA would have filled their flight at around 15:15 so your seats were probably gone by the time you landed in LHR.

4) Given the cancellations on the previous days, chances are the flight for the next week or so are fully booked already.

mikedublin

rugbyman wrote: »

Mike , bad luck came your way.

Two questions /statements

1 i think it is unlikely there were seats available on the BA flight the next day due to time of year

2 I think you were lucky that AER Lingus got you home, surely all their flights were full to Dublin.

3 dont want to seem even a bit narky, but if I were on that trip i would have been planning to enjoy my breakfast in Heathrow at about half ten or so.


Rugbyman

Thanks for the information / feedback.

Just to explain - the tour company (The Travel Department) booked the connection, and the individual passengers had no option to choose an earlier departure for Heathrow. (Yes - as a regular passenger I would always give myself a much longer transit in a journey than the 3 hours they allowed, but as I say they didn't give us any choice in the time of the first flight). They (The Travel Department) also sent us texts on Tuesday and Wednesday to say they were monitoring the flights and to check in as normal for the 12.10 flight.

I did raise that question with them since , as to why they didn't try and move us to earlier flights when the snow was obviously causing such problems, but they replied saying "it would have been the wrong thing to do".

Marcusm

For the DUB-LHR flight, did you have an EI or a BA flight number?

This may be relevant as to why you were sent directly back to Dublin.

If the DUB-LHR flight was not sold as a BA connecting ticket then it is quite likely that BA would not have had a duty of care to you at LHR. (No doubt your tour operator would have so you should, theoretically, have been in the same position.) If the cost would have fallen on the tour operator, it might have made the decision to cancel your tour so as not to open itself up to a claim significantly in excess of the cost of your tour - no one knowing how long you might have been stranded in the UK at GBP250 min per day.

Having both flights on the same ticket or PNR doesn't mean that both were BA tickets. On the EI flight, there will be passengers with EI and BA flight numbers who may have been transiting to to a BA flight with checked through baggage. Their rights on delay could be very different, however.

I agree with the other posters that, due to prior cancellations, there might have been a significant delay in your flying to PEK.

mikedublin

Marcusm wrote: »

For the DUB-LHR flight, did you have an EI or a BA flight number?

This may be relevant as to why you were sent directly back to Dublin.

If the DUB-LHR flight was not sold as a BA connecting ticket then it is quite likely that BA would not have had a duty of care to you at LHR. (No doubt your tour operator would have so you should, theoretically, have been in the same position.) If the cost would have fallen on the tour operator, it might have made the decision to cancel your tour so as not to open itself up to a claim significantly in excess of the cost of your tour - no one knowing how long you might have been stranded in the UK at GBP250 min per day.

Having both flights on the same ticket or PNR doesn't mean that both were BA tickets. On the EI flight, there will be passengers with EI and BA flight numbers who may have been transiting to to a BA flight with checked through baggage. Their rights on delay could be very different, however.

I agree with the other posters that, due to prior cancellations, there might have been a significant delay in your flying to PEK.

Thanks for your post - some very interesting points there.

It had an EI flight number : EI162

So - it could be the Travel Department behind the scenes told British Airways just to fob us off and not re-book us on anything

amdublin

mikedublin wrote: »

So - it could be the Travel Department behind the scenes told British Airways just to fob us off and not re-book us on anything

Well not necessarily fob you off but considering the uncertainties would you have liked to be sat in an airport for possibly days waiting on the unknown. Like you are just assuming that there was space on the next flight (whatever airline) and that the next flight was going to go etc etc.


What does it say is in your t&c's?? Think ultimately this will make or break your case.

mikedublin

amdublin wrote: »

Well not necessarily fob you off but considering the uncertainties would you have liked to be sat in an airport for possibly days waiting on the unknown.

I honestly would say I would rather have been sat at Heathrow for days , with just still the faint bit of hope of getting there.

Truthfully having to come home and be just thinking all the time about what could have been , has been the most depressing and miserable christmas ever

amdublin

mikedublin wrote: »

I honestly would say I would rather have been sat at Heathrow for days , with just still the faint bit of hope of getting there.

Truthfully having to come home and be just thinking all the time about what could have been , has been the most depressing and miserable christmas ever

I know mike. I can only imagine But what if you were in Heathrow yet there was literally no hope of getting out..

There is no real resolution to this to get your holiday back

Complete nightmare for you and your group dude.

I think the t&c's are key here. Best of luck friend.