ksu

As can be seen from my nick, I live in the next town up the coast. I'm a bit surprised at the lack of alternatives you are listing. First of all, there are land based alternatives: Night coach from Vestnes, just across the fjord from Molde to OSL and Oslo, buses to Bergen (one change) and Trondheim. There is a rail alternative at Ĺndalsnes, just about one hour away, with a connecting bus service. And MOL has an alternative service on DY. Of course, now they are completely booked, but a couple of weeks ago, it was still possible to book good refundable alternatives to prepare for a strike. Indeed: that's what my family has done.

Tennen

Since it looks like the strike will continue, I'll add my DP, in case it helps others.

First, I booked through an OTA. TATL in Plus, and this was my outbound portion. They were completely useless, even though they answered calls quickly. I'm pretty sure that the options they gave me (1 day+ later or refund) were pulled from whatever database/program SAS uses (I think oliver2002 posted upthread), since the SAS agent also offered the same flights.

Didn't wait for the rebooking SMS/email and called SAS. Decent ~1 hour hold time, which wasn't too bad. However, the options were ridiculous. Double/triple connections the next day were offered, despite plenty of seats being sold on AC, LH, LO, LX, TK, UA, etc. for the original day. The first (and "best") option wasn't even *A. The very friendly and competent agent's hands were definitely tied. I asked about providing flight numbers to see if they could manually force it, but was told that wasn't possible. The agent was knowledgeable and walked me through the search parameters they tried. I do wonder if feeding them alternate flights would work under "normal" cancellations...

Being flexible with dates gave me a *A option that I had researched in advance, albeit for a different day. So, in terms of knowing the ideal alternate routings, it was a good exercise to use Google flights (or whatever tools) beforehand. But in terms of actually getting onto your preferred flights that should have availability, it didn't help.

Bottom line: Just because you see *A flights with plenty of seats for sale, it doesn't mean you can get it.

GUWonder

They sell tickets for sold-out trains without first getting paid? Sounds unbelievable to me, and would be news to me if that is how it goes.

Yes. I take some trips by train that take longer than flying, and yet the train can work out much better for me at times than flying.

cpworld

Question on EU261: Our ARN-CPH-FAO flight was canceled and they offered a rebooking on SK/BA. Their suggested flight arrives earlier than our original but it leaves over two hours earlier. I think EU261 applies due to the departure time:

• less than seven days before the scheduled time of departure and are offered re-routing, allowing you to depart no more than one hour before the scheduled time of departure and to reach your final destination less
  than two hours after the scheduled time of arrival.
  

Am I correct in this interpretation? That would be 400 euro per ticket? Not clear on whether it is 100% of that amount or 50% as the next clause describes arrival time but not departure time:

"This compensation may be reduced by 50% if the arrival time of the alternative flight does not exceed the scheduled arrival time of the flight originally booked by 2 hours (flights falling under A), 3 hours (flights falling under B) or 4 hours (flights falling under C). "

oliver2002

As mentioned before, most airlines have programmed their systems to restrict availability to SAS booking office IDs.

JR67

Why? Seems a good way to get rid of open seats at the last minute....

poshul

Out of curiosity how does this align with 652d? Aren't airlines in the same group at least basically required to endorse these tickets?

oliver2002

The operating carrier only gets the coupon value of the fare collected by SAS. So they might get peanuts for that seat while they could sell a full fare ticket to a desparate traveller trying to get out...

poshul : if you manage to snag a seat, they (SAL *A) auto endorse it, no issues there. To move it to OAL you theoretically need an endorsement first.

AeoNKiNG

I am booked on CPH-EWR tomorrow and it has not yet been canceled. However, they have already canceled all of the other CPH-US flights tomorrow so seems strange... maybe this is a good sign?

Tomas E

Have you checked SAS flight status page? It's listed as "likely to be cancelled", so I wouldn't get my hopes up too high unless there's a breakthrough in negotiations tonight, despite a lack of real news from the negotiations over the last two days.
https://www.flysas.com/travel/flight...alStation=EWR&
The flight that actually took place (ARN-EWR) was listed as "Scheduled" the day before.

vanillabean

It's my experience that CPH-SFO flights get cancelled at 8:50 the day before.

nacho

Stuck at YYZ alone because MS refused to check me in because my Christian name doesn't appear as the first given name. Now Mr and the kids are on the way home and I'm on the line with SK for over 94 minutes now. I have no idea when I'll get through to them.

AeoNKiNG

Okay yeah, then it's most likely canceled unless major agreements happen tonight. But why would they cancel all of the other flights to US and leave this one as 'likely to be canceled'?

O62

It took 2 hours on the US number for me after being told 60 minutes. I never got through on the Norwegian number, was on hold for 2+ hours.

nacho

Waited over 2 hours and I tried the Danish number now. The US number has a waiting time of 177 minutes. I guess I'll have to camp at YYZ...