holdenuk

However this flight is in 3 months so nothing to do with the random flight suspensions?

Yes I can get a refund but also at my loss? Literally all flights have doubled now for the dates I need to travel. I’m just so angry at the moment, used to love flying CX for over 15+ years but their customer support is just terrible these days!

Also the return portion is not yet cancelled but already removed from sale (I can’t find it anywhere?) so I can only get half a refund at most?!

Sorry but am really confused with this bizarre practice of not cancelling flights that won’t fly eventually and then being very ambiguous leaving your customers in the dark. Anyways I’ve submitted a formal complaint to ask them to re-book me on another carrier for the outbound (QR or AY) at their own expense (I don’t really care tbh - they started this sh** show, now they need to sort this mess out, I’m not letting them off that easily).

moondog

Do you honestly expect CX to buy a ticket for you on another airline, in spite of the 3-months heads up?

nomadabroad

Do you honestly think it’s acceptable for CX to be selling tickets for flights they were never ever going to operate in the first place? Just until a few weeks ago they were selling based on an unrealistic 3x daily flight schedule from LHR (which obviously will never happen!!) only to now zero out 2 out of 3 daily flights this autumn. Some kind of desperate attempt to rake money in by inflating (faking) your flight schedules to scam people.

Nicc HK

I got this from a Professor at Oxford University studying this (someone I went to school with), basically

1. The UK tests more and more effectively than other countries so the count tends to be higher simply because they find more.
2. In the Middle East a lot of the transit passsengers from the Indian sub-continent and also other third world countries are not properly tested and there is a lot of fake paperwork so the figures tend to get understated. Many of them now are not required to undergo testing before leaving for their destinations.
3. It is the transit area that becomes interesting, as there are many people mixing increasing the potential for transmission over that of a direct flight. The irony here is that an infected person from the UK can pass on the virus to people travelling to other destinations than HK as well. But also someone going from Pakistan to the UK flying via Qatar could theoretically infect a passenger heading in the opposite direction from London to HK.

sbs2716g

i tot you should be aware of the unrealistic flight schedules and you still go ahead and book? You know that CX are flying once or twice per week from LHR in Apr and yet you choose to believe that CX will fly 3 daily flights 6 months later and go ahead to book?

CX will be most happy to refund you. They won’t be obliged to reroute you via other carrier.

jz123

well, according to eg 261/2004 they should,
shouldn’t they?

I know they won’t do it but I think you would have good chances in court!

moondog

Doesn't giving him the noon flight option absolve them of further obligations?

jz123

AFAIK it's not regulated how many hours change which is "good enough" neither if it could be only the same airline.
Will 2 hour change with same airline be ok? Will 4 hour? etc

I think the only answer is available in court....

ernestnywang

I think what you state here makes a lot of sense. Your original statement,
though, seems to generalised and may not be applicable if the Indian sub-continent is not involved.

nomadabroad

OP - please do yourself a favour and ignore the CX die-hard cheerleading squad fans continuously defending the unethical business practices by CX.

Go and lodge a complaint form citing EC261/UK261 regulations specifically the cancellation sections. They will say no at first but you need to hold your ground and be persistent, keep on asking to speak on the phone and escalate to the manager for them to send an internal email to head office.

Eventually worked in my case and rebooked to AY at no additional cost.

percysmith

OP is insisting on travelling on originally ticketed day though. I'm not sure CX CoC or even UK 261 stretch that far.

nomadabroad

EC/UK 261 Article 8

Right to reimbursement or re-routing

1. Where reference is made to this Article, passengers shall be offered the choice between:

(a) - reimbursement within seven days, by the means provided for in Article 7(3), of the full cost of the ticket at the price at which it was bought, for the part or parts of the journey not made, and for the part or parts already made if the flight is no longer serving any purpose in relation to the passenger's original travel plan, together with, when relevant,

- a return flight to the first point of departure, at the earliest opportunity;

(b) re-routing, under comparable transport conditions, to their final destination at the earliest opportunity; or

(c) re-routing, under comparable transport conditions, to their final destination at a later date at the passenger's convenience, subject to availability of seats.

UK CAA guidance to Article 8:

3.3 It is important, therefore, to distinguish between the CAA’s view on the acceptable means of compliance and any views it might have on how the courts might interpret the legal obligations in Article 8. In relation to the latter, the CAA’s view is that, taking the specific wording of Article 8(1)(b) literally, the obligation to provide passengers with “re-routing under comparable transport conditions, to their final destination at the earliest opportunity” means that passengers choosing the option of re-routing under Article 8(1)(b) are entitled to be re-routed on the next available flight to their final destination, in the same class of cabin, regardless of which airline is operating the flight.

Re-routing agreements with other carriers
6.3 We are aware that some airlines have agreements in place with other airlines that facilitate re-routing and allow passengers to be easily transferred onto other airlines. Such arrangements are welcome in that they can minimise both the cost to airlines of re-routing passengers and the inconvenience experienced by passengers in being re-routed. However, where airlines do not have such arrangements in place, we do not accept that this should be a barrier to re- routing passengers on other airlines.

percysmith

Fine. Given its UK, also open for OP to book the next available ticket, then recover from CX via MCOL without further reference to CX except thru the courts. This has been suggested for the BA-CX pax stranded in AMS (claim BA as delay carrier). Very strong case as OP acted immediately as soon as CX refused to rebook, just that it’s OP’s pocket that’s at risk if your argument is rejected.

Cambo

Dream on with your EC/UK261. OP added, his flights are 3 months out. EC/UK261 only apply for less than 2 weeks out.

Unethical business practices: I think the most unethical is the China government. Just have a look at the huge mess, they made of their country (the country is effectively BROKE). CX does no more than follow the rules and opportunities to plan flights and fly, blabla. It's the China/HK government, which sets these rules and does change the rules (and the implementation) at a wink. Do that in Western countries and the government would be forced to step down the same day.

Despite that: IF OP can live with uncertainties, is flexible in schedule, etc, stick with your current affordable ticket. The moment the cancellations do come in the EC/UK261 regulations window, you have ample opportunities to request rebooking on other airlines. Be aware, potential late arrival EC/UK261 compensations do only count for flights departing EU/UK, since CX is a non-EU airline.

nomadabroad

No. EC/UK 261 is much broader than this, you are only referring to a very particular compensation section (Article 5 (c)(i); Article 7) within the entire regulation so it is wrong to say that “EC/UK 261 only apply for less than 2 weeks out” - the two week timeframe is only applicable if you are seeking for right to additional compensation due to cancellation.

For flights cancelled more than 2 weeks in advance carriers are still bound to provide reimbursement (refund) or re-routing as stipulated in Article 5. 1 (a) and Article 8 for which a re-routing must be made under “comparable travel conditions” and “at the earliest opportunity” - the ambiguity on both terms may lead to differences in definitions across carriers and passengers although the UK CAA has written their opinion that there should not be any barriers (i.e. excuse) for an airline not to re-route passengers on a different carrier (see my previous posts above).

Re unethical business practice - I appreciate that we will never see things eye to eye so there is no point arguing here. However please take a moment to consider why you think CX can’t play any role to minimise this roulette of scheduling changes, yes in most cases it is unavoidable due to short term / sudden changes in rules from the gov’t but you seem to be very convinced that CX does not contribute at all to the mess and that therefore it is entirely the government’s fault.

Consider a scenario where you are the current Network Planner for CX responsible for the LHR route planning, knowing factually:

1) The current regulation and operating climate / challenges with the HK gov’t
2) Frequent short term bans of flights from HK gov’t
3) The fact that CX can barely maintain a 1x daily schedule to LHR without frequent cancellations, schedule changes etc at the moment,

Would you, as the Network Planner in charge, be comfortable in signing-off an unrealistic 3-4x daily LHR schedule to be effective in a couple months time knowing the aforementioned factual challenges, and then going ahead to put these 3-4x daily flights to sale for this Oct-Dec regardless?

Or would you rather make a decision to conservatively put forward a 1x daily schedule instead for the rest of the year and only put on additional flights as and when the situation improves and evidence is there that the route can sustain additional flights.

So no, I am not saying that CX is entirely at fault here - of course they are currently operating within a very tough operating climate. My point is simply that there are things that they could have done to proactively minimise customer disruptions, for instance, by not putting forward unrealistic, overly-optimistic flight schedules to sale (with predatory lower prices than competitors to attract bookings) only to then realise that it was a big mistake (or perhaps it was done on purpose to test the waters, or temporarily inflate sales revenues - god know what the real motive is) and now decide to cancel most of these flights, and especially when this exact methodology is then repeated many many times again and seems to have become a very “common practice” within CX:

(sell over inflated schedules —> zero out 2/3 of flights —> don’t tell customers and don’t cancel flights in the system until much later so that passengers have less time to process alternatives and leaves CX off the hook from the passenger rights + other regs such as EC261 as flight is not “officially” cancelled yet —> then hope customer will shut up and take the revised itinerary to minimise refunds).

I am not saying other airlines are not doing this, but the practice above has evidently been much much more frequent with CX over the past two years and it’s as if this has become their “normal business practice”.