British Airways extends free rebooking of all short-haul flights to Friday

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• BSI1978 says:

  30 Aug30 August 16:18

  Apropos of nothing (& not to suggest that the current issues don’t justify it) but there is small part of me what wonders whether the CE middle-seat being free is gone forever…..!

  • Numpty says:

    30 Aug30 August 16:28

    Apropos, first time i have seen that word used since Alan Partridge. Respect.

    • David says:

      30 Aug30 August 16:32

      A ha !

      • Numpty says:

        30 Aug30 August 16:44

        ‘Apropos’… it’s Latin. You ought to have a basic grasp of Latin if you’re working in Currys.

  • Andrew J says:

    30 Aug30 August 16:30

    Really? Based on Monday? Why would it be gone forever?

    • BSI1978 says:

      30 Aug30 August 16:40

      I grant you it is unlikely, and I am basing this on nothing more than my experience of services being withdrawn in extremis, and then never returning.

      This would be a significant departure from their CE offering however hence my somewhat facetious statement.

      • Nick says:

        30 Aug30 August 18:46

        It’s been taken away before in disruption and has always come back. No reason to suspect it won’t again this time.

  • NorthernLass says:

    30 Aug30 August 17:35

    I am fully aware of the Latin origin; nevertheless, I always hear the term as sung by Sheryl Crow!

    • Numpty says:

      31 Aug31 August 09:15

      the above comment from me is the full direct quote from Alan P, its not me explaining latin!

  • Richie says:

    30 Aug30 August 18:02

    It was there on my SH flight to LHR last night.

• Dan Dodex says:

  30 Aug30 August 17:07

  Where did the comments go?

  • Rob says:

    30 Aug30 August 17:21

    Old articles have been redirected into this new one.

• jjoohhnn says:

  30 Aug30 August 17:13

  Is it just me or does the BA link throw up a blank page with no text other than a BA site template?!

  • Rob says:

    30 Aug30 August 17:20

    Works fine for me.

• The real Swiss Tony says:

  30 Aug30 August 17:23

  In other news, BA seem to have woken up and on the routes I’ve looked at are either selling both J and Y or Y only for the next few days.

• Stu_N says:

  30 Aug30 August 18:48

  Giving me the option of rebooking a flight TO London City….

  • Polly says:

    31 Aug31 August 06:20

    Rob

    BA are allowing rebooking to LCY from yesterday. Options offered are rebook, cancel or check in.

• CM says:

  30 Aug30 August 18:58

  I wanted to change my Avios ATH-LHR flight on 8th September for a few days later, but there’s no availability. If i’ve read this right, I should be able to change it as long as there is a seat available (doesnt have to be Avios availability)? Can’t log in to the BA website right now to check….

  • CM says:

    30 Aug30 August 19:14

    Its not working for me online – just brings up the Avios calendar with no availability. Might have to give in and call them….

  • Rob says:

    30 Aug30 August 19:20

    No. Can only change flights departing up to 1st.

    • CM says:

      30 Aug30 August 19:24

      Ah I see – my mistake

• polly says:

  30 Aug30 August 19:30

  Yep, our family, 3 of them, due to fly tomorrow from Bergerac to LCY have been given the option to change, cancel or check in. However, check not happening… getting me worried. As all those city types will be wanting to get back to also. Methinks there may be some off loading being planned, but SIL has big meetings in the city himself on Friday. So he has to get back. Will be interesting at their check in tomorrow with no BA staff to handle things there. Wonder how much they might be offered to fly from Bordeaux or Toulouse?

  • BA Flyer IHG Stayer says:

    30 Aug30 August 21:29

    Bergerac isn’t an airport that uses OLCI/mobile BPs – they are all issued at check in.

    • polly says:

      30 Aug30 August 22:01

      Thank you. We always managed to OLCI with Ryan Air to STN. Just hope it work’s tomorrow for BA to LCY. Don’t remember this happening last year. That’s what made me worry for them…

      • Matthias says:

        31 Aug31 August 07:59

        My wife went last week and there was no OLCI at EGC for BA, she got her boarding pass at the airport.

        Was a slightly stressful experience the night before as the BA error message hadn’t made this clear, and when I spoke to the call centre they said “oh other people have been able to check in online fine!!!”

        • Nick says:

          31 Aug31 August 09:23

          EGC is an ‘offline’ station, which means they use local systems rather than FLY to depart flights and OLCI is not possible. Same as DBV, TIA and a few others.

        • Matthias says:

          31 Aug31 August 09:51

          Ref point below (which I couldn’t reply to), TIA is ‘online’ ie I was able to do standard OLCI last year. It’s a really efficient airport with a decent lounge actually, offering hearty Albanian soup.

        • Polly says:

          31 Aug31 August 20:41

          Tnx all, they did have to check at the airport. But weirdly, Ryan Air allows OLCI, but you must print the BP. Anyway, it works, just slightly worrying when it’s not clear. We vaguely remembered checking in at EGC last year in person. So all is good now. Flight packed tho, expected over booking.

• Wallaj4 says:

  30 Aug30 August 19:34

  Just got off the Larnaca flight , 36 club Europe passengers with no free middle seat . Not the same experience for sure
  How do we get some compensation for this ? – cabin crew did not seem to know.

  • Rob says:

    30 Aug30 August 19:38

    It’s not clear you will. There is certainly no scenario under which you will receive it without asking.

  • executiveclubber says:

    30 Aug30 August 19:58

    Apparently there’s a standardised (probably minimal!) Avios compensation for this if you claim via the standard complaints form.

    • Andrew says:

      30 Aug30 August 23:04

      It’s the shareholders I’m worried about. Who is going to look after them in this situation? BA can’t afford to be refunding passengers just because they haven’t delivered part of the product they charged for, they aren’t made of money!

      Maybe BA can have a whip round after each flight and see if we can raise a few million for the poor souls.

    • Lady London says:

      31 Aug31 August 22:07

      Andrew those shareholders are likely to include your pension fund so you should be grateful and not complain their interests are protected

  • Lynx says:

    30 Aug30 August 20:46

    Would the gratitude of the 18 people who were able to use the seats that were freed up not be sufficient? 😀

    • tony says:

      30 Aug30 August 20:51

      Not if you’d paid 5x the price (typical for LCA) for a few inches more elbow room in CE rather than just going Y and writing off those 5 hrs of your life when you’ll be guaranteed not to be productive.

      • Lynx says:

        30 Aug30 August 21:06

        I’m not sure how the presence of someone in the middle seat causes someone in the window or aisle seat to “be guaranteed not to be productive”. Do you need an XXL laptop with a second screen, as well as a pen and paper and some reference books?

        • tony says:

          30 Aug30 August 21:11

          🙄

    • Rob says:

      30 Aug30 August 21:01

      They are down the back so you won’t meet them! What happens is that CE is condensed by 1/3rd to free up 2-3 rows of seats in Economy. Everyone in Club still has a Club ticket.

      • Lynx says:

        30 Aug30 August 21:15

        That’s exactly what I was expecting to happen. If there were 36 in J then I assumed 9 rows condensed to 6, so 3 extra rows made available “behind the curtain”. Trying to put a Y between two J’s would indeed be a recipe for disaster!

        • Kenny says:

          30 Aug30 August 22:23

          I flew from Bologna yesterday to LHR on CW. The reality is they do have some mix of economy amongst J class. And the curtains have been removed – so it all looked like whole plane was economy. The only difference is you see passengers offered a proper meal plus alcohol beverages vs a snack and water. But they do know which seat is CW albeit a few rows in the front only.

  • Paul says:

    30 Aug30 August 23:45

    I’d pull as much of the BA luxury marketing hype about flying BA Club Europe including images from their web site. I’d then pursue a U.K.261 downgrade claim.
    I don’t have a problem with BA doing this but there is no doubt it’s a downgrade and consequently they should pay accordingly.

    • meta says:

      31 Aug31 August 01:20

      Even if successful, it’s likely to be a very small amount as most of Europe is only 30% off for downgrade due to distance. You’re probably better off by taking Avios.

    • shanghaiguizi says:

      31 Aug31 August 05:43

      A few weeks ago I posted here confused as to why even Philippine express island hoppers have proper 2×2 business class seats, yet that BA, an ostensibly ‘world class’ airline, keeps the middle seats in CE.

      It all makes sense now. They keep them to cram the masses in to maximise revenue wherever the opportunity arises. I don’t see BA running to extend CE rows and bump some of the lowest fare economy passengers off the flights. They’re spitting in the faces of higher paying customers because they know there’s almost nothing anybody can do.

      If people complain BA we’ll just smile, shrug their shoulders, and say ‘out of our control’….

      I honestly don’t understand the folks saying just be thankful that your fellow passengers get a seat, like some altruists. If I pay for a premium seat, I expect a premium seat. If BA want to resort to cramming as many people in, they should be refunding the fare difference between the cost of CE and the cost of economy. The fact they aren’t I’d just Reason #10,892 of why never to fly BA 😂

      • JDB says:

        31 Aug31 August 07:10

        @shanghaiguizi – I’m not sure how you think BA is maximising revenue by filling the middle seats temporarily to help people stranded by Monday’s NATS outage?

        • AJA says:

          31 Aug31 August 07:54

          I can see that filling the planes means that BA can fly more passengers about so get those who were stranded from the cancellations back ASAP. And of course that is a good thing, but…

          What I don’t get though is why every plane is filling all rows of CE?

          I can understand it on routes that had cancellations. But not every short haul route has been affected.

          Unless what they are actually doing is consolidating the number of flights and putting more passengers on fewer planes on certain routes and then redeploying those planes to other routes?

          If that is what they are doing are we really sure those “extra” flights are all being filled by disrupted passengers paying nothing extra or are they actually maximising revenue by charging only fully flexible fares and then bunching everyone up in Club and opening extra rows in ET ?

          The other thing that is confusing me is BA has flight cancellations every day. The number of flights cancelled on 28 Aug was unusually high and the day after but the number of flights cancelled each day is reducing. So either they are consistently over-selling flights or you would expect the number of disrupted passengers to reduce exponentially each day.

          I am happy disrupted passengers can be reaccomodated but I think that BA should compensate everyone in Club Europe with a few thousand Avios for not getting the space that they heavily promote and which partially justifies the price difference between ET and CE.

          It should be done automatically, BA should not expect passengers who have paid handsomely for the privilege of an empty seat to have to ask for compensation for letting a disrupted passenger sit in it.

      • JDB says:

        31 Aug31 August 08:14

        @AJA they are filling all the CE cabins (and moving CE pre-booked seating) by using the middle seat shrinking the the of CE cabin rows to create more Y seats. There are still large numbers of stranded passengers – if you cancel even a couple of flights on the incident day itself, it takes time to re-accommodate them onto flights that are seasonally already operating with very high load factors. It’s worse for the LCCs that typically operate with higher load factors than BA.

        • BA Flyer IHG Stayer says:

          31 Aug31 August 09:49

          There was an article in the guardian yesterday about it and indeed because of their higher load factors it is taking some of the LCCs longer to recover and not helped by the weather and e.g. fires in some part of Europe not cooperating.

          They simply don’t have the flexibility the likes of BA, LH, AY etc who keep the middle seat empty in business to be able to use those seats and thus accommodate extra passengers.

          And remember earlier in the summer Easy preemptively cancelled over 1,700 flights because of crew shortages and so had already consolidated flights even further reducing their recovery capacity.

        • AJA says:

          31 Aug31 August 14:18

          @JDB I said that BA was bunching up CE passengers into fewer rows. That’s obvious. But BA are still selling seats on my flight for this Sunday. I’ve just taken screen shots. They are charging £185 in EuroTraveller and £378 for Club Europe.

          Therefore, being extremely generous, if we assume lounge access is £50 and a CE meal and drinks is £20 I think it’s fair to assume that I should get a refund of £123, calculated as £378 – £185 – £50 – £20, being the premium for the empty middle seat.

          Alternatively the fair thing to do would be to split the revenue BA gets for upselling the middle CE seat between the 2 CE passengers either side, so each gets £189 for the inconvenience and for “helping” BA.

          If BA weren’t still selling seats I’d agree with you regarding accommodating stranded passengers. But it’s clear they are still trying to generate some revenue. If that’s not profiteering I don’t know what it is.

      • BA Flyer IHG Stayer says:

        31 Aug31 August 08:57

        Other airlines who also keep the middle seat free on intra European flights using aircraft such as the A319/320/321 or the Boeing 737 include Finnair, Iberia, Lufthansa, KLM, Air France and Air Portugal. And that’s just the ones I can think of off the top of my head.

        So it’s not just BA that does it.

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