hayzel7773

As TPE and BR face it's first typhoon of 2018(Typhoon Maria), I wanted all FT'ers to remember some points about BR's operations during typhoon season so that you don't get blindsided.

1. They are notorious for announcing changes VERY late. Be sure to check your flight status even on the way to the airport. Keep in mind they are in TPE so the updates can come at any time(even midnight US time). They've updated their website/reservation system so that it will shoot you an email/text immediately when there is a time change/cancellation but don't be reliant upon it. Sometimes it will only do one or the other and if your phone isn't receiving SMS messages, you won't get the memo! The EVA Air website is your friend!
2. There are no hotel or meal vouchers given during these times. The airline is very strict about this. Weather delay/cx are not events that hotel/meal vouchers will be given for.
3. If your flight has a time change, don't expect any airport staff to be there for the original departure time. They are well aware of the time change and are told not to come in till they need to(about 3-4 hours prior to your flight). You will not be able to find the staff at the airport(they are in the airline office for normal hours but pax don't have any access to them).
4. They don't auto rebook you! Call them when you get a notification. Keep in mind TPE is not 24 hours; call your local office or the North America office. TPE hours are local time 8:30am-7:00pm on weekdays and 8:30am-6pm on weekends/public holidays. The lines may be long as not everyone can make it into the TPE office during a typhoon!
5. BR has improved their typhoon dispatching this year, evidenced by the already announced cancellations and time changes. However, typhoon movement can be unpredictable and you may be forced to divert. If possible, they will hold you on the plane for up to 3 hours or told that you must disembark. Once you disembark, don't expect to fly that day. The crew will come off as well and they will be shipped off to hotels.
6. There will be a lot of departure time changes, moving flights forward to before the typhoon touches down in TPE. If you are transferring to these flights and it is clear you won't make it, call and change. Otherwise, you will be stuck at TPE airport.
7. Expect them to dispatch planes to takeoff and land down to the last minute. They normally dispatch up to the last hour prior to the expected arrival of the typhoon and will begin flights the moment the crosswind component of the typhoon drops to 10knots or less. Rain is not an issue unless it creates a drop in RVR.
8. Don't panic if you see that your booking status is "Failed" and your ticket number is "Ticket Not Issued". That is automatically put up by the Amadeus system when your flight is cancelled.

hayzel7773

Typhoon Maria Flight Changes:
https://booking.evaair.com/flyeva/EVA/B2C/flight-status-erc.aspx?cmstitle=erc-note1&date=20180710-20180712&airport=TPE%2fTSA%2fRMQ&Orderby=&reqtime= &ACTCODE=

All Changes were made after call center hours so expect TPE call center to be flooded on July 10th.

escape4

And local office phone lines from North America do not open until 11:30am EDT on the East Coast. This is surprisingly inflexible customer service during a typhoon for an airline ranked top 10 in the world. Not impressed.

escape4

And now that the Toronto phone line is open, they do not even place customers on hold, it just rings busy. I wonder how many hours I will need to try to dial before I get the line. And there is no answer at the airport phone line. This is ridiculous.

hayzel7773

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The airport office for YYZ does not open till 5pm! Also agree on the call center issue. The problem is that they do not think a 24 hour call center is necessary, as most changes can be made online(according to them...but their website sucks outside of the booking engine)

Certainly NOT top 10 in over the phone service.

escape4

And the situation is compounded by the fact that they don't rebook flights automatically. I will clearly miss my connection but they have not made any change so I am forced to call. Lots of people are probably in that situation, making the bad phone service issue even worse at a time of peak workload.

asovse1

IIRC the Vancouver contact number has a hold queue system, when I called them a couple of months ago. They should be open at 8:30-17:30 PDT!

eldy

Anyone have a crystal ball and know if TPE will be operational 11 Jul?

I have a honeymoon booked to BKK. Thinking about taking a different airline, and different connection point. However, they don't have seats together in business class.

Might do it if we're going to lose 2-3 days of our trip.

escape4

@eldy: I am flying YYZ-TPE-BKK and transit in TPE on July 11. I would avoid TPE on July 11 if I was you, and this is why I am trying to change my flight.

After getting a busy signal many times, I finally got the line. I have been on hold for 2 hours 50 minutes and counting - so long that I don't even know if they forgot about me and should hang up and call back, or if they just have a heavy call volume? It will be quicker for me to fly YUL to YYZ and go to their airport office in person. Simply laughable, EVA.

eldy

Yeah, I got through but it was fruitless because they don't even know if the inbound flight for my flight will be on time. They are also telling me that they can't access their reservations right now. They might as well have cancelled the flight instead of "rescheduling" it 10 hours later but are unsure if that rescheduling will even be valid. They at least allowed me to cancel the flight and receive a full refund despite it being one of the saver business class tickets.

gengar

Cancellation/refund fee is usually only $100 even for saver biz, so to be honest they didn't do you much of a favor.

hayzel7773

Not really doing you a favor with the full refund. Nowadays, that is a given in the airline industry when these things happen.

hayzel7773

For some reason, BR has started to zero out inventory for all flights on 7/11 and 7/12, effectively restricting typhoon changes to 7/13 and after. Reservation can't reticket to any flights on 7/11 and 7/12 if space does not even exist!

eldy

That's good to know for future reference. Thanks guys!

hayzel7773