Thomathy

Had a family member booked on a domestic JNB-CPT via a BA Avios redemption in Club next week. This was showing cancelled (unsurprisingly). BA were able to rebook on another airline without penalty and without any charge for this redemption flight, all seemed easy. The flight that best matched the required timings was an Airlink flight, not sure if other rebooking options are available. Rebooking was also in business. Did the change by phone.

imverge

I decided to go ahead and book an alternative for my JNB-MRU segment in Business Class on AA award ticket (YUL-DOH-JNB-MRU) for late October).

As this is now the second major disruption of operations at Comair this year, I didn't want to leave it to chance. I prefer to have peace of mind and not bother with the hassle of keeping on top of the situation and then chasing after BA/Comair or AA.

Being that my ticket was issued by AA (BA will not touch the booking) the only option AA offers is to cancel the booking, refund the taxes and reinstate the miles for free.

I kept the YUL-DOH-JNB w/ Qatar Airways. I had a separate return booked with Aeroplan MRU-LHR-YYZ w/ Air Mauritius and Air Canada.

Luckily Air Mauritius operates JNB-MRU on the day of my arrival into JNB. I called Aeroplan and they were able to add the JNB-MRU segment in Business Class to my existing booking for an additional 10K AP points. I could have booked it separately but it would have cost 25K AP points.

Hope this helps with others looking for alternatives from JNB to MRU.

thevantz

My daughter has a flight on BA from JNB to VFA on 9 July to catch a tour leaving from Victoria Falls on 11 July. Would you suggest purchasing another ticket on FastJet? Or do you have any other ideas?

JAXBA

Quote:

Originally Posted by clansey1973

IIRC IAG own 18% of Comair, so perhaps they may participate in a refinancing.

I’m not sure what happened to BA’s investment, but it very well may have been diluted or lost when Comair went into Business Rescue (bankruptcy) a couple of years ago, and a new class of shares were issued to the new investors.

IntrepidAfrican2

Yep. People can’t even work out who the present Directors are.

LX039

Holding on to my AA partner award ticket intact and see what happens with Comair by October, so fingers crossed. My alternate plan is to do JNB to MRU on Air Austral and do a stopover visit in Reunion.

LikeaGVI

Is there any options in this scenario:

Currently booked US-CPT via LHR & JNB with JNB-CPT on Comair/BA all in CW/Business. I’m on a morning JFK-LHR flight that connects to the evening LHR-JNB flight. With their being no indication of how long Comair/BA’s shutdown will last I’d really like to have them just move me to the evening LHR-CPT non-stop. My trip isn’t until the first week of October and from reading this thread it sounds like they’re not even willing to work with itineraries in October. The n/s LHR-CPT only has 4 seats left for sale in Business according to ExpertFlyer for my travel date. By the time they start offering to work with October reservations it will likely be sold out. If Comair/BA still isn’t flying and the only other airline that offers Business class between JNB-CPT (Airlink) is sold out then what - am I forced to be downgraded?

October is only a little more than 3.5 months away. Why can’t BA just help me now? Are there any options?

LikeaGVI

All Comair/BA flights have been zeroed out in all classes for October. If they’re not selling tickets and zeroing out inventory - how does BA not consider that cancelled?

Globaliser

This is a situation which is probably developing day by day. 3˝ months is an absolute age away. If Comair is operating on that date in the far distant future, then you'll probably be able to fly as booked, or on another Comair flight. If not, then you'll get rebooked then. There really is no need to panic.Because BA hasn't cancelled the flight but simply taken it off sale. In due course, that may turn out to be either temporary or permanent. In the meantime, there's a state of uncertainty for everyone. That's all.

LikeaGVI

While I appreciate your info, it didn’t answer any of my questions:

1). Why won’t BA reaccomodate currently booked passengers who are flying in the next few months. Do they want to set themselves up for EC261 payouts by waiting to rebook passengers until the last minute?

2). How is an airline taking all flights to all destinations off sale different than the flights being cancelled? If they’re considering them cancelled in June and July and rebooking those passengers why is the next month or the following month different? There’s no Finances lined up or rescue plan in place. It’s not like this is a short term issue.

KARFA

Comair could be back operating as normal within the space of 3.5 months so BA won't be rebooking people that far out until the situation becomes clear. Atm they are rebooking to end of July. Clearly they are likely to give you several weeks notice so it won't be last minute and will be well beyond 2 weeks which would start to put EC261 compensation in scope (the scope of which is debatable anyway for a flight outside the UK/EU even if you are connecting to/from a BA flight).

Well it is very different since you can easily un-zero the selling classed for a flight taken off sale. No one will have been moved to do this. Cancellation means rebooking, and even if the original flight gets reinstated there is more work needed should people want to be moved back.

Tbh as you note your booking is 3.5 months away and this is a developing situation. I would just wait and see what happens first. It should become a lot clearer soon whether Comair will come back or are gone for good.

escape2sun

I was caught up in the Comair/BA issues back in March, with a flight booked CPT-JNB-LHR in Club all as one ticket, I heard about the issue on the Saturday that all flights were suspended, and BA in the UK weren't interested, at the time of the call there was 2-CW seats on both flights on the Sunday evening, BA42/58, and they refused to put me on either of those flights. I tried again on the Sunday morning, same thing, they told me to go to the airport. Only after the flight was due to depart, did they put me on the direct flight on the Monday., 24-hours later. I tried to claim the EU261 compensation, and after been ignored until last week, despite chasing, they said its a Comair issue, and got to them for compensation

DYKWIA

And an airline going out of business is pretty much an "Extraordinary Circumstance".

shoonye

We are on an international BA flight early July connecting from London to Johannesburg to Victoria falls with that last segment on comair (jnb to vfa). This booking is an award flight. Then our flight from vfa to durban via jnb is also on comair. Right now no word from ba. What do you recommend we do. Does it look like they may be back up in 4 weeks? We are getting apprehensive about the last minute scramble on an international itinerary.

scottishpoet

look at some options you would like and give BA a call