Cathay Pacific cancelled my flight

[csrivats]

I was meant to fly from LHR to Singapore (via HK) on Cathay pacific on Monday,Oct 17.
The ticket was booked in June via a travel agent.
I tried to check online but was not able to do it.
However, i went to the airport on Monday evening (to board the flight at 18:20, i was surprised to find there was no Cathay staff at the airport and i was told by the support staff that there was no Cathay flight scheduled.

When i called the travel agent, they told me they no notification from the Cathay regarding the change or cancellation. I called Cathay and they gave me a vague reason (for the change) but told me they had notified the agent regarding the change (even though the agent denies having received any notification from Cathay).

Cathay were happy to give me a full refund (although i wanted to travel to Singapore, they said they had no availablilty until Dec).

What are my options as i really want to travel to Singapore as planning but am now looking at the 2x the cost for rebooking to travel in the next few days. I have (thankfully ) travel insurance for this trip.

Who should i hold responsible for this? Cathay or the travel agent or my travel insurance? Can i ask any of them to pay me for rebooking a new return flight?

Any help is greatfully accepted.

[Lady London]

It’s late at night so I’m going to be a bit blunt.

Before actioning this all the answers are there for you, across multiple questions which have occurred almost daily, all available here on Headforpoints under the Flight Cancellations and Delays heading.

Multiple, multiple questions and answers covering this territory.

Now I’m going to be rude.
“Any help is gratefully accepted”. Why didn’t you just help yourself, and at least do the very quickest look at the site. i.e. help yourself, before you ask others to help you.

1. The rights you had, by not doing any work yourself and by your taking a refund before doing any work yourself to verify your options, *you have just thrown away*.

Cathay was obliged *by law* to replace your flight it cancelled, at zero cost to you, even on another airline if Cathay didn’t have its own flights.

Yup, read my lips. Cathay was obliged *by law* to replace your flight it cancelled, at no cost to you, even on another airline if Cathay didn’t have its own flights. Even if that ticket would now cost many times what you paid, to replace.

You have thrown that away by taking a refund.
If you had done any, just a tiny amount, of work before taking this action, in other words just done the tiniest amount of googling, you would not have made this mistake.

2. It’s Cathay’s responsibility to inform you of changes and cancellations. Airlines used to be able to get away with saying they told the travel agent. Many travel agents are busy or inefficient so often don’t pass this on. Since at least a year ago, in the UK at least, airlines are legally responsible for informing you and can’t get away with saying they informed the agent, the onus is on them to prove they informed you.

Since you have had the good sense to be insured, read your policy carefully then call your insurance co. Hopefully you purchased a policy which will cover the costs of a new ticket, and they will tell you how to proceed.

But as you hadn’t checked the information available to you on this site before posting, can I just mention insurance policy wording can be tricky. So beforw you call them, please plesse check your policy wording line fot line. Not just the relevant sections about flight cancellations, but also any general sections covering everything typically at the front of a policy, and check relevant words in any “Definitions” section. Do the prep and only then call your insurance company.

Good luck

[ChrisBCN]

Sorry to hear about this!

Did you accept the refund?

If you did, follow Lady London’s advice on contacting your insurance company. Not a lot else you can do.

If you didn’t accept the refund, then speak to Cathay and tell them you want rebooking as per your rights. Lots more about that on this site.

[NorthernLass]

Even though you couldn’t check in online, there should have been information on Cathay’s website about the status of this flight. I check any upcoming flight repeatedly in the days before travel in case something like this happens – on one occasion it meant that we were able to get to the check in desk early and negotiate BA putting us in a taxi to Heathrow when our domestic connection was cancelled at the last minute – if we’d missed our long haul flight the next one wasn’t for 2 days.

As above, you need to look at what you’re covered for in terms of cancellation but the insurance company will probably have some policy around contacting them before you make any decisions and could say that if you’ve already accepted a refund they don’t consider that you’ve suffered a loss.

I hope you manage to rebook your trip – please let us know how you get on as it will contribute to the general wealth of knowledge and experience on here (although it could do with being easier to search for!)

[SamG]

If you’ve accepted the refund then unfortunately that is the end of the matter with Cathay Pacific and your agent.

What would have been the best course of action would have been to go to the airport to their ticket desk 4hrs before the next Cathay Pacific departure that was running. Almost certainly you’d have got on it or they’d have rebooked you, maybe even to Singapore Airlines.

Or come here immediately to ask!

Flights to Singapore will be very expensive as theyre very busy at the moment. I can only suggest playing around with other options locally e.g. Bangkok or Kuala Lumpur and taking a cheap flight from there. Or carriers like Gulf Air may have something.

[NorthernLass]

If you have avios, SeatSpy is showing 2 PE seats to SIN on December 30th, with a handful of return dates in January.

[Jill Kinkell]

@LL ..you are a star! The advice you consistently and patiently give should merit your own Forum page! I’m forever saving your posts into a folder should I ever find myself at the rough end of airline shenanigans on our travels. Its easy in the panic of the moment to not think straight and logically ,hence the numerous Posts all seeking the same advice without stepping back and taking time to search and find out first, and I commend you for your frustrated and slightly impatient reply yet giving the poster the info they need.

[AJA]

I have just check Cathay Pacific’s own flight status page and there was no departure at 18:20 from LHR. That is because the daily flight to HKG departs LHR at 12:20 not 18:20 so you were probably marked as a no show – you turned up 6 hours too late which is why there was no one at the airport!

https://www.cathaypacific.com/cx/en_US/prepare-trip/flight-status.html#/flight-status?flightNumber=&cityFrom=LHR&cityTo=HKG&departDate=2022-10-17

If you have not accepted a refund yet I would try getting to LHR ASAP today and see if they can get you on to todays 12:20 departure.

I would also contact your travel agent again and ask them to explain why they had you on a reservation departing at 18:20 when there is no flight at that time of the day.

[John]

AJA wrote:

I have just check Cathay Pacific’s own flight status page and there was no departure at 18:20 from LHR. That is because the daily flight to HKG departs LHR at 12:20 not 18:20 so you were probably marked as a no show – you turned up 6 hours too late which is why there was no one at the airport!

I would also contact your travel agent again and ask them to explain why they had you on a reservation departing at 18:20 when there is no flight at that time of the day.

The 1820 flight currently operates 3 times a week.

It was probably scheduled for daily when the OP booked their trip, but I suspect the one on the 17th was cancelled many months ago.

The travel agent either neglected to inform the OP of the cancellation, or the OP didn’t receive / understand / ignored the email.

[NorthernLass]

I have never flown with CP but I’m assuming they have a MMB-type system like BA’s and current/previous flights can be viewed. Also, OP needs to search their emails for anything received from CP in respect of this, because if one was indeed sent, they are scuppered in terms of making an insurance claim for more expensive flights. As @LL points out, Cathay should have notified the OP directly about any change or cancellation, so if they haven’t accepted the refund, there may still be grounds to claim for re-routing.

[meta]

Depending on the reason for cancellation (covid can’t be an excuse and neither the Hong Kong closure given that it’s a known fact), The OP is due cancellation compensation under EU261/UK261. This is because they have failed to inform the passenger. Informing just the agent won’t cut it as the airline is always responsible. There is case law on this. I won against BA precisely on this point last summer for Porto flights (2nd time they cancelled on me) when I booked with Amex Travel and they failed to inform me within 14 days.

Even if the OP got a refund, he can go back and request this compensation under Article 15.

If the refund was accepted, the only thing that the OP doesn’t have are the three options under Article 8.

[csrivats]

Many thanks for the comments..
a couple of points

1)Yes, i should try and help myself by checking other related threads but i was soo spent chasing the agent to try and see if they can rebook me on another flight (they kept saying i will have to pay the difference which i challenged)

2)My original flight was booked on the CX250 (which leaves LHR at 18:20) , Cathay has subsequently reduced the frequency of CX250 to 3 days and just kept the daily noon flight (CX252)

3)I did check the flight schedule online on the cathay pacific website, a day before, but as my bad luck would have it, the site was not responding when i entered my booking reference and my name (in hindsight, i should have called cathay pacific a day before)

4)I spoke to Cathay Pacific this morning, they appreciate my problem but refuse to accept any responsbility for rebooking me on another flight as the ticket was booked through an agent. They dont think they have a legal duty to inform the passenger on third party bookings.(which sounds rather odd)
They sent me the email notifications they sent to the agent (which the agent seems to have ignored)

5)The agent says they are “trying” to speak to cathay regarding what options i have…i have not yet agreed a refund but i am loosing hope on whether the inept agent will sort me with the rebooking so may have to end up accepting a refund as a last resort

Once again thanks for your help.

[ChrisBCN]

csrivats wrote:

i have not yet agreed a refund

This is the only material thing that you said. The next material thing you need to answer – did you receive ANY notification from Cathay about the cancellation? Check your email (search for the booking ref, check spam), check your SMS.

That will determine your next best course of action.

[csrivats]

ChrisBCN wrote:

csrivats wrote:

i have not yet agreed a refund

This is the only material thing that you said. The next material thing you need to answer – did you receive ANY notification from Cathay about the cancellation? Check your email (search for the booking ref, check spam), check your SMS.

That will determine your next best course of action.

No i have not received any notifications directly from the airline ( i have checked all folders including spam)…CP blames the agent for not providing my contact details when they submitted the booking (which i find very odd)

[csrivats]

At this stage the notifications don’t really matter save in respect of compensation if the cancellation was inside two weeks, so check the date of the emails you now have. More importantly, whenever the cancellation was made you had and still have a statutory right to be rebooked at no extra cost and that duty is owed to you by CX as the operating carrier even if they have to get the travel agent to re-ticket you. You will need to be very firm with CX telling them the agent isn’t co-operating but that is irrelevant anyway as the responsibility lies with the airline to rebook. Getting them to do this is a whole better than buying a new expensive ticket and then trying to claim it back via CEDR or MCOL.

As ever, by interposing an agent between you and the airline, you have made your life a whole lot more complicated.

Airline is refusing to budge. i even spoke to the supervisor and she said they have followed the rules by informing the agent.
They have asked for the agent to speak to them to discuss option.
I rang the agent and explained to them and they said they will speak to the airline.
You are right, things have got complicated due to booking with the travel agent….
Lesson learnt is to try and book directly with the airline, even though it costs a bit more, it saves you a whole lot of hassle if there is a problem..

[SamG]

On a practical level CX are not showing any reasonable availability to Singapore via HK until Nov 1 (assuming you are in economy). This makes things rather difficult as forcing CX to rebook you into another carrier let alone with what sounds like a rubbish agent in the mix will be almost impossible

If a trip to Heathrow wouldn’t be too much trouble for you I’d still advocate this tomorrow morning before their lunchtime departure. I’m not 100% sure if they can take control of a ticket in this scenario but they’re the most empowered to get you on your way. One option looks like their flights from Manchester have the odd seat or two over the coming days.

As you haven’t taken a refund your UK261 right to reroute is still in play and if they’re refusing to do so then have them note it in the PNR, buy yourself a comparable ticket and you’ll have to work through getting it reimbursed on your return.

Speak to your insurer but likely this isn’t a covered event

[JDB]

@csrivats from what you say, CX is (perhaps intentionally) missing the point. It doesn’t matter whether or not they notified the agent as that is simply not the full extent of their statutory duty. They must reroute/rebook you on a date of your choice, including on another airline if necessary; it’s the law, not a customer service issue. Only the airline can make that rebooking but the trouble is the agent probably can’t be bothered to fight for you.

[csrivats]

JDB wrote:

@csrivats from what you say, CX is (perhaps intentionally) missing the point. It doesn’t matter whether or not they notified the agent as that is simply not the full extent of their statutory duty. They must reroute/rebook you on a date of your choice, including on another airline if necessary; it’s the law, not a customer service issue. Only the airline can make that rebooking but the trouble is the agent probably can’t be bothered to fight for you.

thanks JDB
CX is just using the agent as an excuse to push the problem away. They do not want to accept any responsibility…. I did my best by speaking to the supervisor but they are happy to offer either a full refund or a rebooking on CX flight but departing in Dec (which is too late for me)
They simply refused to entertain any discussions on alternate carrier and said that this is a matter for the agent since they did the flight booking.
The agents are playing the dumb game to annoy and frustrate me..
The agents have asked me to wait for a further 24 to 48 hours to give them a chance to speak to their supplier / airline and come up with options.

Once again, the biggest mistake, i think i have made is to book through these dodgy travel agents (and there are 100s of them that you come across when you use kayak, skyscanner etc). The offer you a competitive price and you fall for it.

Everything clicks through and you end up buying a ticket via these agents until you have an issue, which is when you find yourself between a rock and a hard place like what i am in at the moment.

[Chas]

I’m beginning to wonder if, assuming that you have adequate travel insurance that covers flight cancellations, you should speak to your insurer to get a new flight, and let them battle it out in the background with CX. Making it clear that you know that CX are responsible, that they’re not meeting their statutory responsibilities, and that you can’t / don’t want the cashflow implications of buying a new cash ticket and then taking them to MCOL.

[SamG]

It’s worth speaking to them but it’s likely they’d expect you to recover what is due by the airline which in this case is a reroute to your destination

[StillintheSun]

@csrivats
This is not a pleasant situation to be in. I’m afraid companies are very happy to bully people into not pursuing their legal rights. If you have to travel before December then you’ll have no alternative but to stump up for the cost of the new flight. However, before accepting a full refund from Cathay you could try one of the no win, no fee airline claims firms to pursue Cathay for the difference on flight cost and any potential cancellation compensation. Bott and Co are one of the big players but they will take take a percentage of your claim if you win. Alternatively you could try arbitration or the small claims court but only you can decide if you can stomach the fight. Alternatively, simply put it behind you, worse things happen at sea and a lesson learned (book direct) is useful for the future. There are many times in life where I have been bitten and then twice shy. It hurts at the time but the lesson learnt often pays dividends in the future 🙂

[csrivats]

StillintheSun wrote:

@csrivats
This is not a pleasant situation to be in. I’m afraid companies are very happy to bully people into not pursuing their legal rights. If you have to travel before December then you’ll have no alternative but to stump up for the cost of the new flight. However, before accepting a full refund from Cathay you could try one of the no win, no fee airline claims firms to pursue Cathay for the difference on flight cost and any potential cancellation compensation. Bott and Co are one of the big players but they will take take a percentage of your claim if you win. Alternatively you could try arbitration or the small claims court but only you can decide if you can stomach the fight. Alternatively, simply put it behind you, worse things happen at sea and a lesson learned (book direct) is useful for the future. There are many times in life where I have been bitten and then twice shy. It hurts at the time but the lesson learnt often pays dividends in the future 🙂

Thanks for the great advice….i have learnt my lessons..i am feeling gutted that i should have called and checked with Cathay (when the online checkin option was not working) rather than assume that it was just a website error.
I am annoyed with the agency for just lying (that they did not receive the change notifications) when Cathay sent me the notifications clearly showing the emails sent to the agency
I might pursue legal route but i am really confused about the next steps so going to wait for a day or 2 and see how things pan out.
But thanks for your kind words.

[csrivats]

This is what Cathay Pacific are saying and trying to pin the blame on the agent (for not informing me, the passenger regarding the cancelled flight)

“Please be informed that CX250/17OCT was cancelled on 30th of June and you were protected to CX252 on the same date.

All information regarding flight cancelation and protection option was added to your booking with clear information to your travel agent. Please note that your travel agency had full information to all changes in your booking and was fully responsible for the reservation.

If travel agency has any questions regarding the booking VF95JB, we recommend them to contact our trade support line.

Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any further questions.

Best regards,

Anna

Customer Contact Lead

Customer Care Department ”

In short, all the legs of my trip were changed and Cathay pacific simply updated the booking hoping the travel agent will pick it and inform me (the passenger)
As Cathay are not willing to discuss this further with me and the travel agent is taking forever to react, can i progress a legal case on the above grounds and seek compensation (as i was meant to travel for my parents 80th anniversay this week which i no longer can due to lack of suitable flights)
Can anyone suggest a suitable legal company that i can look at? Bott and co was one suggestion? anyone else?

[JDB]

@csrivats unfortunately, that’s not good. CX did what was required of them by law and you say they did not have your contact details so could not have contacted you. The cancellation was more than two weeks in advance so no compensation is due and CX rebooked you on the same day but the agent failed to notify you. I don’t think you have any legal claim against CX and a claim against the agent for failing to notify you and the consequential losses if you were to buy a new ticket isn’t easy and I don’t think the type of claim Bott&Co would take on – they really only deal with EC261 cases they think are fairly easy wins.

[csrivats]

JDB wrote:

t’s Cathay’s responsibility to inform you of changes and cancellations. Airlines used to be able to get away with saying they told the travel agent. Many travel agents are busy or inefficient so often don’t pass this on. Since at least a year ago, in the UK at least, airlines are legally responsible for informing you and can’t get away with saying they informed the agent, the onus is on them to prove they informed you.

So Cathay’s can get away saying that they informed the agent and take no responsbility?
As Lady London mentioned above, some of these travel agents are inept and are only interested in making their sales cuts on the booking orders. They may not have the process in place to look at the existing bookings and inform the passengers on what has changed.
Also, I find it hard to believe that Cathay has accepted a booking without getting the passenger;s minimum details such as contact number and emailID?
This ticket was booked in June and what would have happened if the agent had gone out of business between then and now?