Holidaymakers are losing hundreds of pounds and having trips ruined because airlines are making major changes to flight times as little as 14 days before departure.
Money Mail has been swamped with letters from readers hit with alterations out-of-the-blue.
In many cases, the flights are being moved to inconvenient morning or evening take-off times, which the customer never would have chosen to book.
As a result, families face losing a day of their holiday, wasting money on a transfer, coughing up the cost of an extra night’s stay at a hotel, or paying an additional day of boarding for their dogs.
Travellers who took advantage of lower airfares by booking months in advance then face being stung with hefty bills if they try to rebook more convenient times.
And despite these last-minute changes forcing passengers to frantically reorganise their plans, airlines are breaking no rules, Money Mail has discovered.
Grounded: While passengers may think a departure time is confirmed when they get booking confirmation, sneaky clauses in terms and conditions state this is not guaranteed
Airlines can change times to consolidate multiple flights from the same airport on the same day because of seasonal demands, new routes or cancellations of other flights.
There is no data to show whether flight time changes have increased but the number of complaints we have received recently has been substantial. The cause is a mystery.
Aerospace regulator the Civil Aviation Authority says: ‘If your airline makes a schedule change, it should notify you of this at least 14 days in advance. Significant changes may entitle you to a refund or alternative.’
However, even those who secure a refund are finding they face spending far more to book an alternative flight at short notice.
Information about your rights if you have been hit with a schedule change is hard to come by and often confusing.
While passengers may think their departure time is assured when they get confirmation of their booking, sneaky clauses in airline terms and conditions state this is not guaranteed and – crucially – does not form part of your contract.
Dean Dunham, Money Mail’s consumer lawyer, explains: ‘The Consumer Rights Act 2015 requires terms in a consumer contract to be fair, and this will almost certainly mean that if the time change is “substantial”, the consumer will be entitled to cancel the contract and demand a refund.
‘Another law, UK261 (the law and regulation that governs flight delays and cancellations), provides that the consumer can ask to be re-routed instead of cancelling the contract and asking for a refund, again where the time change is substantial.’
But there is no set definition of ‘substantial’ in law and few airlines provide clarity on what they see as a significant enough change to qualify for a refund or alternative flight.
Mr Dunham says courts typically accept a change of at least five hours as ‘substantial’.
You can ask to be re-routed on a flight with another airline, because if you face a schedule change of more than five hours, your flight can be treated as ‘cancelled’.
This means that you can ask to go on an alternative flight with another airline if the original airline has no suitable options.
But Mr Dunham warns airlines do tend to argue against this. There are also some differences between airlines so it’s always worth checking the terms and conditions.
For example, Virgin says if your scheduled change is less than five hours, but it will cause you to miss a connecting flight or cruise, you can choose between a refund, reroute or travelling at a later date.
Last minute: Airlines can change flight times to consolidate multiple flights from the same airport on the same day, because of seasonal demands, new routes or cancellations
Hannah King, who asked for her name to be changed, is one of the growing group of passengers whose carefully planned trip has been ruined by airline alterations. She booked the trip of a lifetime one year ago to visit Antigua for ten days this Christmas.
Hannah, who runs a small family practice, is set to jet off from Heathrow with her husband, 50, and three children – a 12-year-old and twins aged ten.
The 48-year-old, from South-West England, says: ‘We booked a lunchtime flight on December 27 thinking we can drive up to Heathrow and it won’t be stressful.’ While the 1pm flight would mean a 6am start for their four-hour drive, it was manageable.
That was until last month when Hannah’s travel agent informed her the flight times had changed. Both the outward journey and the return are five hours earlier – meaning that lunchtime flight is now 8am.
The family now need to set off at around 1am to make the outward journey. Hannah says: ‘I can’t do that with three children. We are looking at booking an airport hotel but as we’re a family of five we need two hotel rooms.’
Hannah expects to have to shell out about £200 in extra costs and the change will have a knock-on effect on her Christmas plans as they must now leave home just after lunch on Boxing Day to travel to the airport.
Meanwhile, their return flight was originally planned for 10pm to allow them time to spend one final day at the beach but this has been brought forward to 5pm.
Even if you are offered a refund or alternative flight, airlines do not consider themselves responsible for losses incurred due to schedule changes, the CAA says.
So, the amount Hannah and her family are forced to spend on an extra night in a hotel must come out of their own pocket. However, it is always worth checking the airline’s terms and conditions to see if they offer recompense.
Robert Burns, 77, and wife Isobel, 75, enjoy jetting off for some winter sun in January every year and regularly visit the Caribbean.
Next year, the couple will be spending 12 days in Antigua from January 6, which they booked in May, flying out from Heathrow. But in September, Virgin Atlantic emailed to say the flights are now more than five hours earlier.
While this is fine for the outward journey, the return journey has given them a major headache.
Robert and Isobel live in South Lanarkshire so will travel from Scotland to London to fly to the Caribbean.
Inconvenience: Jay Wheeler’s 3pm return flight from Lanzarote to Luton was switched to Gatwick and held back until 8.05pm
On the return, they booked a flight from Heathrow to Glasgow at 3.40pm – leaving five hours in the airport to make their connection – after their flight from Antigua lands at 10.30am.
However, Virgin has now moved the flight back from Antigua, so it lands at 5.25am. That means the wait in Heathrow between flights is now going to be ten hours.
The pair decided to bring their Glasgow flight forward, for a £200 fee. Robert adds: ‘We’re going to have to suffer the cost.’
Angela Morgan, 66, is also facing hefty costs as a result of airline schedule changes. She is due to travel to Antalya in Turkey with three friends for a golfing holiday on October 9.
They booked the trip last November with British Airways and even extended their planned seven-day stay to eight days, in order to get a more convenient flight back to London Gatwick.
But just six weeks later, they received an email saying their flight times had changed.
Instead of arriving into Antalya at 6.10pm, it will now be close to 8pm. And on the return journey, instead of touching down at Gatwick at 4.25pm, it will now be 00.35am the next day.
Angela, a retired chartered surveyor, says: ‘We would not have chosen that flight or extended our stay by a day just to hang around for so long.
‘I had been intending to take the car and leave it at the airport but we are getting in close to 1am and I don’t like the idea of driving at night. We are now getting a taxi which is not cheap.’
Angela and a friend will need to spend £200 between them on a taxi back to their homes in Wimbledon, South-West London.
BA did offer to put the friends on an alternative flight – but as there is only one flight a day into Gatwick, they would need to leave Antalya a day earlier.
BA says all airlines occasionally make minor changes to schedules. It aims to give customers as much notice as necessary and provide rebooking options or a refund.
When Money Mail asked the CAA if it is doing enough to protect travellers such as Angela from coughing up hundreds of extra pounds due to schedule changes, it said: ‘We appreciate that changes to flight times can significantly affect plans.’
The CAA urged travellers to check an airline’s terms and conditions, and it said the Department for Transport is responsible for deciding if changes are required to the law.
For Jay and Caroline Wheeler, not only did their flight times change but the location changed to an airport 70 miles away.
In November, the pair are off to Club La Santa – a sports village in Lanzarote – with their running club. When they bought the easyJet flights in April, they chose to fly from Luton, just 20-minutes from their home in St Albans.
They booked a 3pm outward flight that arrived in Lanzarote at 7.15pm while their return left Lanzarote at 8.05pm and landed just after midnight.
However, in June, Jay, a semi-retired owner of an animation business, received an email from easyJet, which showed their flight was ten minutes earlier. Three months later he realised they were now flying from and back to Gatwick.
They would now have to change the return flights to Luton or face travelling 70 miles in the early hours of Sunday.
The options to return to Luton were limited so they are returning a day later and the airline charged them £60 in admin fees to make the change. In addition, the extra hotel, a day more of dog boarding and the trains will cost £372.
Mr Dunham states a change in airport, even to another London location, should be considered a ‘substantial’ change – and grounds for a refund. Yet easyJet did not offer any reimbursement.
An easyJet spokesman apologises and has offered to pay for the train fare to Gatwick as a goodwill gesture.
He says: ‘As Mr and Mrs Wheeler’s original outbound flight was no longer operating from Luton we moved them to the next available flight from London Gatwick, which was departing within a few minutes of their original departure time.
It says customers always have the option of choosing a refund or rerouting. Virgin Atlantic was asked to comment.
- Has your flight been affected or are you an airline insider who knows what’s going on? Email l.evans@dailymail.co.uk
