I can't judge who "wants" to fly there, but SAS definitely does, in fact during the winter (as in I was able to pull up their CPH-KEF (as a "random" test) timetable for today right now, and it shows they fly to kef from ARN and OSL each once or twice a day.

(And meanwhile, BA certaiinly flies to both ARN and OSL daily, so if they "wanted" they could connect you to KEF.)

So while the KEF airport website may have inaccuracies, your post cllaiming no one flies to KEF besides IcelandAir is completely wrong. Perhaps no one else flies there longhaul, but that's not what you said. Perhaps no one who partners with a OneWorld airline flies there, but that's not what you said.

(I suspect that if I checked other airlines listed there, I would find more, but I picked SAS because I know of their commitment to "secondary" airports in Sandinavian countries and of their "refusal" to route everyone through only one hub in one country. :) )

More Iceland Problems
 

Well, we thought we were safe on our Iceland segments, since we were traveling by BA in mid-March. Nope. Yesterday we got a notice that BA had canceled our flights.

Turns out they are substituting smaller aircraft without a business class section, and since we have J tickets, they simply canceled our tickets! We weren't even moved to Y. (I would have asked for our money back anyway as I'm not paying for J and flying in Y.)

Nice. Fortunately we'd purchased the tickets separately from our AONE4, so it doesn't cause us a huge problem -- we're just skipping Iceland on this trip. But I think BA handled this badly.

Looks like a 752 in an all WHY configuration is operating LGW-KEF (at least for the 2 days that I checked in February). Surely BA could just book you onto that aircraft if you tell them that you were originally confirmed in J? Since it has many more seats than the 734 that normally is seen, there shouldn't be a problem getting on. I wouldn't abandon a trip to Iceland just for this reason.

Im confused; how did BA handle it badly?

By your admission, they gave you exactly what you would have wanted given the cancellation since you wouldn't want to pay a business fare and fly in economy; if you are happy to fly in economy ( and I don't think that economy is much worse than business on the short haul routes given that they are the convertible seats) you can happily rebook at the cheapest appropriate economy fare


Dave

I'm sure if we requested it, they would have booked us onto the new aircraft in Y. But we don't fly in Y if we can possibly avoid it, and besides, we paid for J. (Even if we were willing to fly Y, the price has since gone up and we'd get no refund for the downgrade.)

We'll have to visit Iceland on another trip.

They handled it badly in that they simply canceled our tickets and sent us an e-mailed notice stating that our FLIGHT had been canceled, with no further information and no alternatives offered. Why didn't they call us and explain our options?

The e-mail ended up in my spam folder and I could easily have missed it. Further, if I had been an inexperienced flyer who really needed to make that flight, I would have been panicked, because I would have thought the flight was no longer available, when in fact it was only J that was unavailable.

Oh well, all's well that ends well.

Well, it does state on the BA site that the email address will be used to inform about flight changes if you provide one


To be fair, if you gave BA an email address to communicate to you with, it is hardly their problem if you have it go to a spam folder

Dave

I't seems an email address was provided as a cancellation notice was sent.

The question as to how BA "Handled this Badly" is, as promoted by free101girl, "They handled it badly in that they simply canceled our tickets and sent us an e-mailed notice stating that our FLIGHT had been canceled, with no further information and no alternatives offered.".

BA could have handled this situation better by ensuring an email was sent informing of the change and offering options, rather than simply canceling and sending an email to that effect.

I understood Dave's comment as a response to free101girl questioning why BA did not call them to explain their options. It seems that if you opt for email contact that is precisely what you get, no more no less.

I understood that as well.

What I was basically referring to was that BA could have made better use of the available e-mail facility.

If they had her phone number, a follow up phone call would have helped. Otherwise, more explanation in the email and options would have been useful.

So
 

I also felt that to say that they didn't handle it well when what BA did do was exactly what the passenger would have wanted in the situation was a tad unfait; I cannot see that they handled it that badly ; maybe they could have done more but overall the OP was given exactly what they would have asked for

Dave

I don't disagree with that.

It's probably a matter of expectations and experience. I have never received an email or a telephone call from AA, not once, and they have my email and telephone number. All I get is a "There has been a change in your itinerary, please contact AA" notice when and if I retrieve the PNR to check on aa.com. If I don't login and check I find out nothing, until check-in. So, thanks to wise advice read in the AA forum years ago I check aa.com very often. Could AA do more? Sure. Do they handle it badly? Not in my book.