rjatyyz

So, I booked an Aeroplan points ticket involving Air Canada and Oman Air. The route is Toronto to Paris(stopover for a few days taking advantage of the AP stopover program) to Muscat (90 min connection) to Delhi. I am sitting in Paris and my flight from Paris to Muscat is delayed. I am pretty sure I will miss the connection in Muscat and this is the only flight for the day between Muscat and Delhi operated by Oman Air. I have a few questions.

Firstly, I am wondering if I can do something at this point proactively? Which airline do I even contact? Air Canada issued the ticket, so, I understand they are the ones I made a contract with. Or is this something I address with Oman Air? Also, it seems they will rebook me with another flight 24 hours later as there is no other flight on that day. Should I book a hotel myself or wait to get to Muscat and ask Oman Air to do it? Moreover, can I ask Oman Air to rebook me via Emirates as they have a partnership with them? There is a flight via Dubai on Emirates which would get me to my destination 12 hours later as opposed to 24 hours later. However, this being an Aeroplan ticket issued by AC, I don't know how willing Oman Air would be. Anything else I should be thinking of and proactively doing at this point? Really appreciate the help.

The Lev

I would suggest you start with Oman Air. You will spend hours on hold trying to reach Aeroplan and they'll probably tell you to sort it out with the operating carrier because they can't proactively do anything for you. Offer up your preferred options to them to see what they'll bite on. Worst comes to worst, enjoy 24 hours in Muscat at Oman Air's expense.

HerpaYvr

I had a similar issue just a few days ago on an AP ticket, flying LH from IST to FRA. The flight was delayed, so I used my Canadian phone, long-distance to AP in YYZ, and stayed on hold for about half an hour. I asked to be met at the airport and rushed through security to make my AC flight home. This was not done, total waste of time and money as there was no AC on site for help. I went to the LH senators lounge and as I flew on LH, they looked after me as EU airline rules are strong in favor of passengers. They looked after me with meals, hotels, taxi, and a new flight.

Since you are flying on Oman Air, yes start with them on how they will look after you

jix

Since it sounds like you're at airport already, this is IROPS and flight is under airport control. Whomever operating your delay flight from Paris need to take care of you, so start there. Research your options and know what you want, then present the options to agent and ask for it firmly based on the IROPS rule and interline agreement.

Don't bother with AC, their call center isn't really operational today and likely with piled up calls for the foreseeable future.

rjatyyz

Thanks to you and everyone else. It sounds like our flight is going to get cancelled and Oman Air is asking everyone to go back to their "home" in Paris and they will call with an update on the flight time. They are calling each passenger one by one and communicating this news. I am assuming they should put us up in a hotel in Paris since this is not our "home". We will have to go to a hotel and get rooms. (We are a party of 5, so, big group). However, I am confused whether they are obligated to do so as I have not yet started my journey with Oman Air and my previous flight was with Air Canada from YYZ to CDG a few days ago (i.e. I am on a voluntary stopover). Appreciate any advise that folks may have on how to deal with this situation.

zappy312

You might want to call AP since Oman Air is asking people to go "home". In theory the AP call center is operational and with 50K status, you might have enough priority to get your call answered in a reasonable amount of time. AP might be able to reroute you sooner than Oman Air's rebooking.

Stranger

It's not operatonal today. Rogers issue.

canadiancow

Aeroplan has been operational all day.

zappy312

I guess if you're calling from a Rogers phone, then sure it won't be operational. But just tried and can confirm no issues when calling on a Bell cell phone, they even have an AC specific outage message (we can only help with AP bookings, not AC ones, etc.) AC.com message confirms this too:

rjatyyz

I was able to call AP and they offered to reroute me on 14th, which is not really an option. They did stress that I should follow up with Oman Air since this is their responsibility as an irregular operation.

Oman Air on the other hand has officially cancelled the flight and is just telling everyone to wait till they figure out what to do next. It's already been 7 hours past the departure time. They are saying keep waiting, we will put you in a hotel and figure out what to do. I read up on eu 261 and it seems they need to give me the reroute option. I can see flights online from cdg to my final destination via Emirates, Etihad and Qatar in 6-8 hours from now. Question is: How do I get Oman Air to book me on those? Keep talking to airport staff or call their useless call centre? It seems they want me to just wait or take a refund, which I don't want to do.

Or alternatively, how do I get Aeroplan to help me book on these flights?

Once again thanks to everyone for sharing their experiences and tips.

canadiancow

Give the airport staff the flight numbers you want to be rebooked on.

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pmarrsouth

Skype is near always free

expert7700

Late reply (please post an update to how it was resolved), since you are in FRA, definitely keep talking to airport staff. In FRA, airport contractors handle this for the many airlines that might only staff checkin counters at certain times of day due to limited flights. My last experience was that they were so backlogged, it took them several hours to phone me.

The Lev

OP is in Paris not Frankfurt.

expert7700

whoops. I read the wrong connection point from a reply (post 3).
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We are trying to book Oman Air on Aeroplan sometime as well, to experience a new airline.

Also to OP: Hope you have a successful EU261 compensation claim against Oman Air. It seems that even though your trip started outside of Europe, a delayed then cancelled flight from Paris likely makes them liable for the full cash compensation... 600EUR for each of the 5 in your group!