Sri Lankan move a flight leg 10 hours early, my rights?
 

Hi,

I am on the RGN-BKK-CMB single Business Class flights on 20 October 2019 (as a first leg) and CMB-LHR 5 days later

My times were fairly good, RGN-BKK 16:30-18:15 (UL3301 or 8M331) connecting onto the BKK-CMB (UL407) 20:25-22:15

I have been emailed to say the UL3301 was 'cancelled' and that asked to confirm if the 07:40-09:25 (UL3307) would be okay? That's would mean a 11-hour lay-over in Bangkok

It would appear also that Myanmar Airlines International which is providing the RGN-BKK is continuing to operate the 16:30 flight, as being bookable on their own website.

What are my rights here? Could I argue for a change to the airline operating the RGN-BKK leg, such as the Bangkok Airways 15:20 departure (PG708) or am I pretty much stuck accepting what Sri Lankan says, the 07:40!!!

Cheers to the collective

In general your rights are to accept the new flights or accept a full refund. They do not have to rebook you on other airlines. Could they? Sure. They can choose to spend their money in almost any way. Will they? Very unlikely.

Yeah, I get that but are they allowed to move me on the excuse of a leg cancellation when the original flight was fine and is operating as planned?

I cant see either codeshare being sold currently.

E/F show Business as being sold out on the 8M flights, so I suspect you have been bumped.

In which case I'd try to get placed back on the original flight.

Yes the can.

A bit late to this, but I'm not sure if this is a case of business class being sold out.

MAI (8M) took delivery of XY-ALJ (ex-Aigle Azur A320) recently. I think it's in all-Y config with 180 seats.

The a/c has been deployed on RGN-BKK route a fair bit.

Fair play to UL (after about 5-6 phone calls), they accommodated us on the later 18:00 MAI flight RGN-BKK but because that would have meant missing out on the BKK-CMB with UL, they moved us onto the 22:00 Thai Airways departure.

The MAI flight was all Y-config as stated and, while our tickets showed economy and we were 3 abreast in 1 A-C, they seemed somehow to be making an exception of us, the day after they cancelled business class on that flight, and served us our meal with linen service. We were the only ones on the plane that this applied to, getting awkward looks from other passengers. Were they doing this to apologise or were we still accommodated as economy passengers in normal seating arrangement. I can't work out whether this still qualifies as an 'involuntary downgrade' or were they trying their utmost best to 'blur' the distinction so it would reduce the risk of complaint?

It was a sprint at BKK airport owing to a late inbound arrival but we got to try Thai, which we would not have done otherwise though we're were not terribly impressed with the hard product on the 'asian inter-regional' A330 configuration and it was a battle all the way through the flight to be replenished with wine. The CMB-LHR leg with UL was great with a 1-2-1 config, however.

Are UL correct that their change onto Thai Airways (which was initiated by them) would mean I no longer collect the 40 TPs for the BKK-CMB leg that I would have done on UL?