Virgin Atlantic publishes official Cape Town flight rebooking guidelines

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• babyg_wc says:

  22 Nov22 November 15:53

  i think virgin have to (and i think will) do more here. I recently have had two flights cancelled, one with BA and MMB let me rebook almost any BA/QR flights of my choosing on that route (it was LON-DOH so many options), the 2nd was Sri-Lanka, who after a few emails rebooked me on next available flight which was Etihad (AUH-CMB). I really don’t see how a non-direct +4hours replacement flight is comparable or why virgin would win a case here. I would research a few comparable options and ask to be booked onto one of those flights and ask them why they will not book one of those options.

  • Rob says:

    22 Nov22 November 16:11

    BA has a JV with Qatar on those routes so they are de facto BA services (on Qatar metal) – not the same here.

  • JDB says:

    22 Nov22 November 17:31

    @babyg_wc – there’s no certainty that the passenger would win or that Virgin would win but not many have the know how, time, tenacity or the money to risk testing the issue.

    The Interpretative guidelines simply say that indirect reroutings are to be avoided where possible but they are definitely not excluded. On this routing, there are very limited options.

    BA doesn’t have the capacity nor wants to take Virgin refugees. A pax in PE or economy might be able to cancel for a refund and rebook on Norse, possibly even saving money. An indirect routing via JNB seems a reasonable offer.

    A court isn’t going to be interested in weighing up one indirect option vs another so when none of the options are ideal, but Virgin has offered something reasonable they might well be found to have complied with their statutory duties.

    Maybe Virgin will come up with something better but that may depend on how busy the JNB services are.

    • Flying Misfit says:

      23 Nov23 November 01:42

      A copy of (or link to) these ‘interpretive guidelines’ would be very useful to have when as passengers we find ourselves in similar predicaments

• Throwawayname says:

  22 Nov22 November 17:13

  To be fair, Airlink have a solid reputation and JNB isn’t a bad airport, they could’ve made worse choices. Even the thoroughly decent KQ would have been quite a downgrade – when I flew them to CPT a couple of years ago, they had a 737 with regional business class seating on the route, and it’s a fair old distance.

  • Throwawayname says:

    22 Nov22 November 17:17

    Having said that, if I had a Y ticket for such a long flight and was given the opportunity to break it into two substantially more manageable ones, I would bite their hand off!

    • John says:

      22 Nov22 November 19:11

      Depends if it’s overnight or not, though I’m not sleeping great on overnight Y any more anyway

• Littlefish says:

  22 Nov22 November 17:56

  This is a tricky one. Air france doesn’t even have a direct flight that season and KLM is a day flight arriving 21:30ish, both of which are after an ex-UK flight anyhow. So apart from BA (who have 1 flight then) and Norse on just three days a week until 27th April, it an even worse detour on other possible routings.
  I had to swap from Cape Town direct to via JNB with Virgin last year due to late cancellation on my side. The via JNB routing is not ideal but not terrible either; you basically lose the day in Cape Town and have some extra faff within OR Tambo; but airside awaiting domestics is fine and food/drink is plentiful and good.
  Having to do the same, via JNB dance, going home is much more of a pain and loses another day in Cape Town, that bit shouldn’t be underestimated.
  I guess the issue is what better option is going to come along … and will Virgin play ball if/when their LHR-JNB flight that day is full.
  The problem with cancelling is Virgin have form for dragging their heals on refunds for months.
  I might look at the loadings and take a view on whether VS via JNB out and the KLM late flight back might materialise later.

• points_worrier says:

  22 Nov22 November 18:30

  For the braver of you, Virgin is signed up for the AviationADR scheme, and a direct flight is likely to be expected as ‘comparable conditions’ from Article 8(1)c of UK 261 legislation. So you wouldn’t have to go through court to get it back.

  Additional avenues of pursuit could also be Section 75 of CCA if you paid for the flight using a credit card, to reimburse you for the statutorily required comparable conditions required of Virgin, which they have failed to provide. This could be escalated to the FOS should the credit card company fail to reimburse you for the replacement costs (not just the refund cost of the original flight).

  I went down this with BA when they cancelled a South Africa route and refused to reroute me and only refund me. Being cash-rich post-COVID I ended up buying a full fare F flight with Emirates, the full costs of which were awarded via CEDR.

  • Whitworth says:

    23 Nov23 November 10:54

    Or just take the connecting flight. / refund

• ChasP says:

  22 Nov22 November 18:51

  interesting quandary; as Rob says VS may well be able to claim the flight via JNB isnt unreasonable
  However when the JNB flight runs out of space for everyone in their booked class what will VS offer then ?
  Might be worth waiting

• gundam says:

  22 Nov22 November 19:53

  What a mess. Is there truly no other route they could have sacrificed in April with less disruption?

• Lady London says:

  22 Nov22 November 20:02

  So if someme accepts a reroute via Joburg, already adding 4 hours to the originally bought landing time, how late does the connecting route finally have to land in order to be eligible to claim compensation for delay?

  Is it only 1 hour more to make 5 hours late based on the original flight’s timing, or does the reroute have to run a full 5 hours late based on its own planned timing (making the passenger a full 9 hours later than he originally booked) for delay compensation to be payable?

  I think it’s pretty relevant because a different routing involving an extra flight does increase various risks quite a bit. I personally wouldn’t go Joburg if I could possibly avoid it and ISTR reading somewhere that the airport there had a bit of a rep for luggage theft.

  Would have thought direct flights into CPT via a European connection eg Lufthansa or Swiss should be worth looking around for.

  • Gerry says:

    22 Nov22 November 20:54

    Zero comp, I believe, since it’s done a few months out.

    • Lady London says:

      22 Nov22 November 22:16

      For cancellation zero for that reason.

      I was wonderng of the reroute ends up bring delayed on the actual travel, delay compo being a different thing.

      • JDB says:

        23 Nov23 November 00:05

        Any potential delay compensation relates only to the actually flown flight which attracts its own separate rights. The timings of the cancelled flight that led to the rerouting are irrelevant.

        As these cancellations are many months away, as @Gerry says, no compensation is payable for delay or cancellation, even if Article 9 Right to Care expenses might apply.

        The reasonableness of any rerouting would be considered case by case depending on the individual circumstances of the passenger and what was offered to that specific passenger by Virgin.

        A passenger booked on a short trip for a specific event is in a different position to one on a two week holiday or another pax on a one way ticket.

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