Finnair has cancelled my flight to Australia and instead routed to Hong Kong!
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Hi – wondering if there is any advice out there. I had a business class Finnair flight from LHR to Perth via Helsinki/Singapore all booked through Finnair. Today I received an email saying the flight that was due to take off in December was cancelled and now they are offering to fly me to Hong Kong instead – with no onward flight to Perth (there are no direct flights from there). I’ve spent ages on the phone to 3 separate people at Finnair and am getting nowhere. What seems to have happened is there was a tight 1 hour turnaround time in Singapore to get the Perth connection and now that flight is delayed by 15 minutes so can’t get that connection. Finnair are saying no other business class is available on any days around my date of departure. And even though I can see that final connection flight to Perth a day later on the Qantas website, they say they don’t have access to those seats under their codeshare agreement. I’ve quoted the EU regulation to them but am getting nowhere. They are basically saying accept the cancellation and get a refund and book elsewhere but the flights are now hugely more expensive so I don’t want to do that. Any advice?
Find an alternative with AY flight numbers, then call and ask to be re-routed on those flights.
Plenty of answers already here regarding this. You have the right to be re-routed on any existing flight where there are seats available. It doesn’t have to be with OneWorld airlines.
In any case, I would communicate in writing rather than over the phone reminding Finnair of their obligation under EC261/2004. Perhaps an email to CEO might result in a better response.
Since there is still some time before the flight, you can then follow-up with a legal action at MCOL. Search via Google for advice from this forum as current forum search is broken.
Under no circumstance except a refund!
Finnair are talking rubbish here – as noted they have a legal obligation to reroute you to your destination, regardless of any policies or agreements they have as a company. Have a look at the long thread in “cancellations and delays” about various readers’ experiences in dealing with similar situations.
As @meta says, don’t accept a refund and make it very clear that this is your position, otherwise you may lose your rerouting rights.
echo ++ – do not accept any refund !
Perhaps try to get them to put you via Doha as at least that is carrying a AY code ?
AY 1332 – AY 1981 – AY6529 LHR-HEL-DOH-PER
The challenge with trying to reroute via SIN is there isn’t a legal connection as a transit anymore, you’ll need to do a 24hr 45min stopover. This might not be allowed in the fare rules which may be why they are struggling to do this routing
But OP is entitled to be re-routed so they need to find a route that works, fare rules are irrelevant.
Yes of course they’ll entitled to it (or something else reasonable) – trying to suggest ideas that may go smoother with the call centre as they’ll be restricted by their system. Via Doha is a permitted route on the fare basis I checked so I’d give that a go first
Thank you for all the responses. After seven phone calls (yes,seven) and everyone telling me no, finally I spoke to one guy who also told me no. But then he tried again and has confirmed the Doha routing now that was suggested SamG. So thank you all! Now I need to lay down for a while…..
Thank you for all the responses. After seven phone calls (yes,seven) and everyone telling me no, finally I spoke to one guy who also told me no. But then he tried again and has confirmed the Doha routing now that was suggested SamG. So thank you all! Now I need to lay down for a while…..
Glad it worked out – at least you can luxuriate in all the tier points!!
Nice!
IIRC it’s the A380 down to Perth, not Q suite but I really don’t mind that seat personally, I’m really not getting into the door thing as someone who runs hot
Actually I spoke too soon. They just cancelled this flight again! It’s not a good day.
Oh dear! Grit your teeth and keep insisting – at least now they’ve rerouted you once hopefully they’ll stop trying to claim it’s not possible. Remember if they can’t find a convenient alternative for them, they still need to find one for YOU.
Using the ITA Matrix you can search for flights with AY only (not to be mistaken with “operated by”).
Using this I can see that Stockholm can be an option to Doha too.
I don’t know your dates but can share a link if you provide them
Using the ITA Matrix you can search for flights with AY only (not to be mistaken with “operated by”).
Using this I can see that Stockholm can be an option to Doha too.
I don’t know your dates but can share a link if you provide them
Yes Finnair operate a few flights from the nordics into Doha in co operation with QR. But the connection to Stockholm would be BA metal.
OP – do you mind sharing the date? I can’t see that the options have changed HEL-DOH-PER so I think they cancelled your booking for some reason
As an aside I did a little further checking, the HKG option it looks like they were potentially thinking of does exist on a T Th Sat out of UK. But it’s zeroed out currently which seems weird. Might resolve itself in time
I think there is a Cathay Pacific flight from HKG to PER which has a Finnair AY codeshare flight number attached
I would search the Finnair website for the date and routing you want to take and then use those details when you talk to Finnair customer services.
I found this business class fare for sale for £4,735.58 on the Finnair website departing LHR on 6 December and returning on 27 December:
Outbound:
LHR to HEL Flight No AY1338 Dep 18:10 Arr 23:00 Class R
HEL to HKG Flight No AY099 Dep Thu 00:50 Arr Thu 19:00 Class R
Overnight HKG
HKG to PER Flight No CX171 Dep Fri 15:15 Arr Fri 22:50 Class P (so don’t credit this sector to BA as you won’t earn anything)Inbound
PER to HKG Flight No AY5846 Operated by Cathay Pacific Dep 00:10 Arr 07:40 Class D
HKG to HEL Flight No AY100 Dep 21:35 Arr Thu 05:30 Class D
HEL to LHR Flight No AY1331 Dep 07:50 Arr Thu 09:10 Class DAs SamG says it would be helpful if you could provide the dates you were supposed to be flying
Again, thanks all for your help. I really appreciate it. I got another flight. I had to live with getting into Perth 24 hours later than I had planned, but given the exhausting series of telephone calls, I’ll just take that for now. Interesting to note that they just point blank refused to reschedule on other flights where I could see Finnair themselves had availability (eg on the SamG suggested routing they wouldn’t do the Doha/Perth leg). Even when I could see availability on a later Singapore Airlines flight from Singapore to Perth (which again was visible on the Finnair website) they just wouldn’t book it as they only – apparently – had an arrangement with Qantas. Infuriating really. The legal position didn’t move them at all even when I put it to them. Just worth keeping in mind if you are thinking about Finnair for a future flight.
Get ready for this not to be all the stunts they try and play.
Last Jan we bagged AMS-HEL-HKG-BKK & back in J for 2 of us for £1468 each. Between then and late October they made no less than 18 changes. Removed HKG and made it direct HEL-BKK which for most would be fine but it was a big hit for tier points we were crediting to BA but we took that on the nose. In one weekend they made no less than 4 changes. 3 of which had us arriving HEL after the AMS flight had left. The very last change was to move us from a 23.xx BKK departure to a 10.xx the next day incurring a hotel stay and meaning we’d miss our AMS-LHR connection ( separately ticketed) & the last of the day forcing another hotel stay. That change was done, imho, VERY intentionally one day before they would become legally liable under EC261.
Throughout all the changes all they would say was “well give you a full refund”. I have no doubt in my mind that was due to the fare being +£10k by march and high £14k by a few weeks prior. They wanted us to cancel so they could resell their price gouged fares and tried everything they could to get those seats back to make bank on.
@C2K77 it’s worth noting that AY have no responsibility or regard to any separate tickets you may have to get you to / from AMS.
On separate tickets you simply don’t have a connection with all the issues that involves.
If your BA tickets are economy plus or club and are simple point to point cash tickets then you can use the same day change facility.
@CSK77 was stuck in Bangkok I believe, not in Amsterdam. In this case duty of care still applies no matter when the flight was changed, cancelled. So hotel stay plus meals is Finnair’s responsibility even though no compensation. I would submit receipts and take them to court if they refuse.
What fabulous advice amonaghan1 has received here.
I think this is what @meta means above but just to clarify, the duty of care part of EU261 means that if an airline’s change or cancellation results in you needing extra hotel nights, the operating airline is responsible for cost of that extra accommodation, transport costs to and from that accommodation, plus any meals falling due within your extended travel time or waiting time for flights.
Duty of care is regardless of how far ahead of the flight the airline makes the change. So even if they make it 364 days ahead the airline is liable for these expenses.
Compensation is a different part of EU261 and yes the airline doesn’t have to pay you it if they make the change at least 14 days ahead.
I am pretty sure the first revised booking was cancelled after @monaghan1 found a helpful agent, because the agent’s supervisor overruled them. It happened too quickly for most other explanations I think.
I hope when the US Department of Transportation brings in their own version of EU261, which they’ve just started sorting, that the US will introduce additional penalty costs for airlines that refuse or delay paying these very clear rights, in addition to the amounts due. It would be a fair exchange for the airlines getting off having to pay duty of care for changes made far ahead, which may be in the US version.
@CSK77 was stuck in Bangkok I believe, not in Amsterdam. In this case duty of care still applies no matter when the flight was changed, cancelled. So hotel stay plus meals is Finnair’s responsibility even though no compensation. I would submit receipts and take them to court if they refuse.
Please reread what they wrote and I was replying to
… and meaning we’d miss our AMS-LHR connection ( separately ticketed) …
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