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Has British Airways just cancelled your long haul flights? Here are your options

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British Airways has just made some sweeping cancellations for 2021, in many cases cancelling routes entirely.

The following routes have been permanently suspended, according to internal communications:

British Airways BA A350 in flight
  • Abu Dhabi
  • Calgary
  • Charleston
  • Dammam
  • Durban
  • Jeddah (although a temporary Hajj operation will exist in July 2021)
  • Kuala Lumpur (from late March)
  • Lima
  • Muscat
  • Osaka
  • Pittsburgh
  • Seoul
  • Seychelles (from late April)

Three routes have only been suspended for the 2021 Summer season and are due to return in November 2021:

  • Bangkok
  • San Jose Costa Rica (from mid April)
  • Sydney

You may already have received an email alerting you if you had a booking on one of these services.

British Airways BA A350 Premium Economy

What are your options?

Flight cancellations are governed by EU law EU261. These regulations will continue to apply following the end of the Brexit transition period on 1st January 2021 as they have been subsumed into UK law.

You can read the full text of EU261 here. Article 5 of EU261 deals with cancellations:

1. In case of cancellation of a flight, the passengers concerned shall:

(a) be offered assistance by the operating air carrier in accordance with Article 8;

Article 8 outlines the duty of care an airline has towards you in the case of cancelled or delayed flights, including the right to reimbursement or re-routing.

Here is the relevant extract from Article 8:

Article 8: Right to reimbursement or re-routing

1. Where reference is made to this Article, passengers shall be offered the choice between:

(a) – reimbursement within seven days, by the means provided for in Article 7(3), of the full cost of the ticket at the price at which it was bought, for the part or parts of the journey not made, and for the part or parts already made if the flight is no longer serving any purpose in relation to the passenger’s original travel plan, together with, when relevant,

– a return flight to the first point of departure, at the earliest opportunity;

(b) re-routing, under comparable transport conditions, to their final destination at the earliest opportunity; or

(c) re-routing, under comparable transport conditions, to their final destination at a later date at the passenger’s convenience, subject to availability of seats.

As you can see, there are three clear options: a full refund (clause a), re-routing as close to the original flight timings as possible (clause b) or re-routing at a later date (clause c). It is your choice which of these you choose, not the airline’s.

There does not need to be Avios seat availability if your cancelled flight is an Avios redemption and you would like to be rerouted.

What if British Airways no longer flies there?

EU261 is clear that the right to re-routing is not dependent on whether a particular airline flies to the original destination.

For example, British Airways has cancelled its Kuala Lumpur flights permanently. Malaysia Airlines is now the only airline offering direct flights between London and KL.

In this case, you could reasonably argue that “comparable transport conditions” include re-routing onto the only direct flight available with Malaysia Airlines, rather than a connecting flight.

Some agents will claim they cannot reroute you on another airline because they do not have an agreement with each other. This is unlikely to stand up in court: EU261 does not make such a provision.

That said, you cannot pick what alternative airline you wish to fly. BA can put you on any flight as long as it gets you to your final destination at the “earliest opportunity” and under “comparable conditions”.

Can I switch to a different airport?

Yes. BA’s policy is to let you rebook to airports within a 300 mile radius of your original destination.

In our example where British Airways has cancelled its Kuala Lumpur flights, it is still flying to Singapore which is less than 217 miles away. In this case, you may prefer to be rerouted to Singapore.

BA have also said that they will allow re-routing to Vancouver for Calgary bookings and Riyadh for Jeddah bookings in this specific case.

EU261 is a little more vague about your rights in this case. Here is Article 8 (3):

3. When, in the case where a town, city or region is served by several airports, an operating air carrier offers a passenger a flight to an airport alternative to that for which the booking was made, the operating air carrier shall bear the cost of transferring the passenger from that alternative airport either to that for which the booking was made, or to another close-by destination agreed with the passenger.

It is not entirely clear how EU law defines ‘region’ here. It is debatable whether Kuala Lumpur and Singapore are in the same ‘region’ – they certainly aren’t the same city!

BA British Airways 787-9

Do I get compensation?

In some circumstances, monetary compensation is provided in addition to any duty of care, refund or re-routing rights.

EU261 also outlines the circumstances in which you may be entitled to compensation.

Article 5 states that:

1. In case of cancellation of a flight, the passengers concerned shall:

(c) have the right to compensation by the operating air carrier in accordance with Article 7, unless:

(i) they are informed of the cancellation at least two weeks before the scheduled time of departure; or

(ii) they are informed of the cancellation between two weeks and seven days before the scheduled time of departure and are offered re-routing, allowing them to depart no more than two hours before the scheduled time of departure and to reach their final destination less than four hours after the scheduled time of arrival; or

(iii) they are informed of the cancellation less than seven days before the scheduled time of departure and are offered re-routing, allowing them to depart no more than one hour before the scheduled time of departure and to reach their final destination less than two hours after the scheduled time of arrival.

As virtually all the cancellations have been made with more than two weeks notice you will not be entitled to compensation.

What other options do I have?

British Airways is offering Future Travel Vouchers as well as cash refunds if you do not wish to rebook. Unless your booking involved a British Airways American Express 241 voucher or a Lloyds upgrade voucher, cash is obviously the sensible answer.

The only reason to take a Future Travel Voucher is that it protects your 241 or upgrade voucher and extends it to 30th April 2022. All travel must be completed by this date.

How to contact BA

If you would like a full refund of your flight you must use the form here. You can only request a voucher on Manage My Booking.

For re-routing options you must call British Airways directly on 0800 727 800. If you have BA status then you should call the relevant status line as you have a substantially greater chance of getting through. If you have a booking in First you should call the ‘You First’ number here.

Phone lines are likely to be very busy in the coming days given the number of cancellations. Your best bet is to give it a week or so for things to calm down and then try again.

It is important to be clear that you may well not be offered the options that EU261 legally provides, especially if you have an Avios ticket. You may find that you will be left in the position of having to pay cash for a new ticket from another airline and then take British Airways to CEDR arbitration or Money Claim Online in order to reclaim your money.


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How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (December 2021)

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There are two official British Airways American Express cards with attractive sign-up bonuses:

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Comments (413)

This article is closed to new posts. Discussion continues in the HfP Forums.

  • Danny says:

    easyJet promised that for a cancelled flight I could pick any other route in their network (with a couple of exceptions), no matter how expensive, instead of taking a refund. This was in writing, however they’re now refusing it. Is my best option a written complaint and then if no luck do a Section 75 on the original booking for consequential loss after buying my new flights?

    • Lady London says:

      what exactly are Easyjet refusing to do?

      what date was the email advising you of cancellation and what route are you trying to rebook to ?

      • Lady London says:

        also what date was your original flight?

      • Danny says:

        Cancellation email and original flight were both September.
        Easyjet are refusing to honour their cancellation email which promised that I could switch to any other destination & dates up to September 2021. They are saying that since the original flight was more than 2 weeks ago I can now only choose another destination within the same country as the original. This condition wasn’t specified anywhere at the time, or since, until I actually tried to make the change using their online system and saw i was no longer allowed to.

        • Lady London says:

          Call again, have their cancellation email for that flight ready to send, offer to send it to them (they can usually pick it off the top of the incoming customerservices@easyjet.com queue if you coordinate while you are on the phone).

          Look carefully at any footnotes on the email such as the one they introduced on later cancellations excluding a list of their longer-haul flight destinations from being rebooked to despite the text.

          IIRC though the ‘same country’ exclusion wasn’t on cancellations being sent in September, not in text and not in footnote.

          The agent should then be willing to get your desired rebook authorised. If not ask them to escalate it, give them 30 days to confirm your desired flight. I’d not hang around and would charge it back after that promptly. you are basing the chargeback on their cancelled flight.

          I dont really want to do Easyjet’s job for them but I have a nasty feeling they csn wriggle out of honouring the offer of another route in their email. Gut feeling it may be similar to an ‘invitation to treat’. @Sukes would know.

          However what they cant do is wriggle out of providing you a later flight on an alternative date of your choice on same route even if muuuch more expensive. I think I’d have one of those ready and say you’d like your other (cheaper) route preference but if not then happy to go with the (muuch more expensive) same route instead.

          Be nice as their agents had a tough time and are now back at work dealing with this all day and hoping their jobs will survive into the future.

    • r* says:

      Not sure how you are trying to do it, but if you log in to the easyjet site, go to my bookings, then there should be a ‘change to flight’ box, click manage flight button next to it. That should then allow you to change to any route for any date with no additional cost.

      You must click the manage flight button from within the change to flight box tho, NOT the ‘regular’ change flight button as that will try to charge you.

      • Anna says:

        I don’t think you can do this any more – I tried recently but was only allowed to changed within the same country which I didn’t want. I’ve requested a refund instead, apparently taking about 6 weeks now.

        • Lady London says:

          Yes they have sneakily introduced new conditions that way very recently.

          Often the Manage Disruption button does not work at all or even, will never have worked

          • Danny says:

            Yes, for me the manage disruption allows me to pick a destination in the same country, but the original email (and the website at the time) both promised that it could be any destination country (with a few exceptions like Egypt). It goes without saying I want what was promised, not just a refund. Lady London, any advice?

          • Lady London says:

            @ Danny see above

  • Wollhouse says:

    Further to my phone all where the agent refused to reroute me, I want to follow up with an email BA customer services but can’t find one! The last one I had says it’s only for outbound, no inbound accepted..anyone got one that they actually look at? Tia

  • Stephen says:

    Another joyous day. Still waiting for my refunds for flights 4 weeks ago to Costa Rica that they cancelled and now they have cancelled the new flights I booked for April next year! They have offered to reroute me via MAD with Iberia but I am in PE going and CW coming back. Is it reasonable for me to request reroute via MIA with BA flight to MIA and AA down to Costa Rica?
    And then the other week I took advantage of the 20% off code to book returns to Nepal next Sept via DOH flying BA LON to DOH and return and QR from DOH to KTM. I had also avios upgraded LON-DOH leg to CW so it was CW/Econ going Econ/PE coming back. They are trying to reroute me to the earlier BA flight to DOH which would leave me a 9hr stopover in DOH (previously 3hr40m) – can I argue they should switch me to one of the slightly later 3 QR flights? Coming back they have switched DOH to LON to a QR flight as the BA flight would mean a 20 hour wait but have d/g me to Econ. Obv QR dont have PE so can I argue that they should upg me to business on QR or alternatively make that point about the involuntary d/g and my plans to claim compensation worth 75% after travel?
    Advice welcome – happy to wait a few weeks for the dust to settle if that helps with a satisfactory QR outcome for the Nepal trip
    Thanks

    • Lady London says:

      % comp is lower if it’s not F to J and not that worth it.

      I would work out what you want and ask for it. No 9 hrs instead of 3 in Dxb or Doh would be grim and I wouldnt accept.

      For any ticket on which any flight is cancelled you can ask to reroute all flights on the ticket. That might be your best approach and I would accept no downgrade in class.

      Look up flights/ dates you wany and feed them to the agent. Try being nice first.

      • Stephen says:

        Thanks Lady London. Will see how I get on 🙂
        But at least there is another sale on !!

    • Clive says:

      Do you have an active IB account? If you do you could possibly book direct with IB in their 2for1 sale currently running on Avios bookings

    • e14 says:

      SJO
      If you are in PE, they will put you in Economy on Iberia for both legs, if you route through Miami (assuming they rescind PP 9996 and you can transit) you would be WTP to the US and then economy for MIA to SJO, I know which I’d rather do. Couple of points though, the flight MIA to SJO you might get into Economy Plus dependent on your BA status, second point, I’m not sure if International to International (ITI) luggage is being offered at Miami at the moment

      • Stephen says:

        Thanks e14. Dont worry Im not flying MAD-SJO in economy – I am 6ft6″
        I am a Silver. They have now cancelled 3 sets of flights to Costa Rica, 4th time lucky maybe!

  • Osagie says:

    I’m sitting on way too many future travel and E vouchers. I got an email informing me that my flight in June 2021 was cancelled. However, I booked that flight using an E-voucher (received from another cancelled flight!)…any chance I’ll be able to get a cash refund rather than another E voucher????

    • Lady London says:

      they will say no but try.

      this is one of the many reasons you should never ever take a Future Travel Voucher unless you have a 2for1 voucher in your booking or something similar that would otherwise expire.

      Otherwise always insist on cash refund.

    • Tracey says:

      I had a refund without hassle from a cancelled LHR-SEZ flight that had been rebooked from a previously cancelled flight. Was a cash+ GUF. GUF was instantly redeposited into the pot with an extension of 6 months added, refund took less than 3 weeks.

  • Dave says:

    Just got through on the 0800 number. Apparently if its an Avios booking you need to ring 0344 493 0747, so now on hold again

    • Keensta says:

      @Dave how did you get on with Avios? They seemed a bit unsure this morning but emailed me later to offer either:
      1 – a full refund and and extension of the Lloyds upgrade voucher for 90 days, or
      2 – A reroute (kind of… Vancouver instead of Calgary) but I would lose the 50% offer and need to pay the additional Avios.

      The £35/pp fee would be waived either way.

      I’m wondering if the advice provided by @Lady London also applies to Avios booking?

  • dragonfly says:

    @Dominic (on p9) – I would be interested to hear your update on this, as I am in a similar situation. Thanks.

    “Dominic says:
    17 December 14:24
    I’m having the same problem with First to SYD via SIN with Companion Voucher booked in Avios sale in October for June 2021 flights (cancelled by BA yesterday). BA First told me by phone this morning I could not delay to November 2021 for revised flights because outside 12 month original ticket validity, and I could not reroute on same dates via HKK or SIN because BA has no agreement with partner carriers to get me from HKK or SIN to SYD. I have made a complaint to BA and expect to have to go to court unless BA relents. They want me to take voucher, I said no.”

  • rebecca king says:

    Hi All Just wanted to say THANKS VERY MUCH for all the helpful comments. My 241 flight was also cancelled and when I received the cancellation Email I did not think BA would reroute me on a non BA flight. However after reading this thread and arming myself with some appropriate facts BA have just booked me on an alternative One World Alliance Flight that I am happy to use. Yes BA agent did try to wiggle out of it and say it may not be possible to reroute with another airline but I was firm and in the end all was well. Extremely relieved. Now just need to get my husband to change his 241 too!!

    • dragonfly says:

      👏 👍 – fingers crossed we will have similar success when we contact BA.

    • Aston100 says:

      Well done Rebecca.
      Could you kindly advise the destination and the new airline please?
      I’m getting mixed messages from BA about who they can or cannot book you with, and it seems to to depend on the destination.
      On the other hand, it also seems to depend on the roll of a dice and whether there is a blue moon tonight.

      • rebecca king says:

        We were booked to go to Lima in July . Now doing BA LHR to Madrid and then using Iberia Madrid to Lima. Slightly longer travelling but I am fine with that. I was told as long as there were avios seats available I was fine. Luckily there were these seats available but I was prepared to argue with them if this had not been the case.

  • dragonfly says:

    Having spent almost 2 hours to digest all the posts here in order to decide on the best strategy for our similar situation with BA – rerouting would be what we are after. The general advice is to sit out for a few weeks, then contact BA after things cool down a bit. However, my question is what happens if we do nothing and BA automatically issue us the FTV or a refund. As I understand, a refund would signal the end of my rights for rerouting. Is this correct?

    • Thom says:

      Separate out FTV and refund. A refund is one of the options you are legally entitled to. Whilst it’s your choice between rerouting and a refund, I guess they could argue that they’ve satisfied their legal obligation by refunding you If you don’t get in touch.

      A FTV isn’t one of your legal options, so it’d be hard for them to argue that they’ve satisfied their legal obligation if you don’t actively pick that .. but that’s still not an argument you want to have after they’ve done it!

      They’ll probably give you a call if you don’t respond (they did when my BKK flights were canceled in December …which I moved to April so hoping for a QR reroute!)

      • dragonfly says:

        Thanks, Thom 👍

      • meta says:

        No, they haven’t satisfied their legal obligation by refunding the ticket without passengers’ consent. They can refund you, but you’d still have the claim and right to re-route, refund and duty of care at any point right up to the check-in (this is especially important for last-minute cancellations/changes as you need time to explore options).

        You do have to be reasonable though, but siting it out and calling until 2-3 weeks before the flight is usually considered reasonable time. If they call before, you can always say you’re still exploring options available to you under EC261 and you’ll get in touch when it is right time for you.

    • Jerrry Butler says:

      Has anyone on here stopped and thought that international travel as we knew it is unlikely to return in a reasonable way until Autumn 2021 and probably not fully until spring 2022. Therefore booking anything prior to this is likely to end in frustration, hours spent chasing airlines for refunds, heartache and possibly some financial loss. Take it from your buddy Jerry, once you have made the decision not to travel for a year, you feel so much better and annoyingly smug as well!

      • marcw says:

        +++++++1

      • Lady London says:

        Oh, do stop being realistic @Jerry Butler.

        We come on here for dreams and because we have hope.

      • Rob says:

        I’m typing this on a 90% full SWISS flight heading down to Dubai, so I’m fully confident in your assumptions ….

        • Jerry Butler says:

          Each to their own. Ten fold increase in new cases in UAE since mid November. Complacency is a continuous struggle that we all have to fight.

          • Rob says:

            Unless you’re living in Land’s End, still aggressively lower numbers than where you live though, plus we will be outside virtually all the time, in warm weather, and nowhere near the labourer accommodation where the infections tend to be ….

            I won’t be killing off any of my elderly relatives either 🙂

      • Anna says:

        How’s the movie business?

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