British Airways drops flights to Calgary for the winter

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• Londonbus says:

  7 Jun7 June 13:05

  If you book a flight through ebookers and then follow their offer to add a hotel, be aware that this makes your flight a no-change/no-refund one.

  Well hidden – but a nasty gotcha.

  • Polly says:

    7 Jun7 June 20:58

    Thanks for that info…v nasty..

• Planespeaking says:

  7 Jun7 June 19:43

  This isn’t just Calgary – yesterday, our Xmas flights to/from LGW-PFO were cancelled by BA as was the entire winter schedule although I have to admit I half expected it as they never used to serve PFO from Nov-Mar. That said, I really don’t think they’d have any issues filling the aircraft as it’s always full of people who’d prefer to fly BA compared to the chartered or low cost alternatives (and they seem able to fill 2 flights a day to LCA), so I guess they just need the aircraft. The text advising of the cancellation suggested waiting for BA to call me (hmm) or for me to call them. I went with the latter and spoke with a very nice chap who said he could see we were Gold and booked into J so the first course of action would be to wait to be contacted by BA whilst they arranged an exact alternative to PFO, whether Qatar Airways or Cyprus Airways and of course, in Club. This raised alarm bells as neither carrier serves PFO and in fact, there are no J seats to PFO on any other carrier direct from the UK so I just asked to be switched to one of the 2 daily LCA flights and was met with “certainly sir” and all was sorted within minutes and at no additional cost, despite LCA now being way more expensive than we’d paid for PFO. I’d already checked car hire rates and my chosen company was the same cost at LCA as from PFO so I haven’t really lost out, other than the inconvenience of a 90 minute drive at either end and paying for the additional fuel used for each trip but I’m not going to ask for compensation as these are minor inconveniences. Admittedly, I do like the F lounge in LGW South but I also like the F lounge in T5 and the LCA Club lounge is streets ahead of PFO. I also prefer the 320 fleet out of LHR and even taking the drive time into account, I find the LCA flight times more convenient (and more reliable) than LGW. So, everything resolved with the minimum of fuss and I don’t have anything to complain about really, other than it would have been nice if BA had pro-actively contacted me to discuss or their operator had a little more knowledge of more credible alternatives. All thanks to Rob and sites such as this and FT for keeping us in the know but a shame for others who will be affected by similar cancellations and with less awareness (or availability) of suitable alternatives.

  • Planespeaking says:

    7 Jun7 June 19:46

    Doh, should have written “exact alternative to BA” and not PFO!

• Travelling Inspector says:

  7 Jun7 June 20:38

  Slightly OT – re Vancouver, I flew back on Tuesday evening and as a ‘mere’ Silver member flying PE I was put in the grossly inferior Plaza Premium lounge at YVR. Fortunately a chum with Gold flying Club on the same flight was able to guest me into the Terraces First lounge, but not without a struggle – the desk claiming the diversion to PP lounge was because there were capacity issues in Terraces. Using a 380 does mean a lot more passengers, I suppose.

• Derek says:

  16 Jun16 June 17:27

  Is it normal for BA (or any airline for that matter), to only have 1 Involuntary Rebooking Interline Agreement in place after 12 days? I see that for the Calgary Suspension, BA have only added UA as an option, which feels as if such agreements are almost ‘grudged’?

  Surely AC should be jumping at the chance to secure as many of these booked passengers to Calgary as possible, to try and convert them to future AC customers?

  • the real harry1 says:

    16 Jun16 June 17:42

    there must be a negotiation on amount to be paid behind this, BA wouldn’t be paying headline ticket prices – maybe other airlines won’t go as low as BA requires

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