Help - SK cancelled my return flight
 

I booked our Christmas trip (CPH-MCO) back in June via travellink.dk. At the time, they offered the best itinerary and price, which was CPH-MCO via EWR with the domestic connection on CO, returning MCO-CPH via ORD with the domestic connection on UA/TED. (SK's site rarely offers a CO connecting flight nor a decent price.) Non-refundable ticket.

Today I received an itinerary update from TravelLink.dk which at first looked like only a 20-minute change on the connecting flight from EWR to MCO which was no problem as we have 3 hours in EWR anyway. I noticed our seat assignments on the ORD-CPH return didn't look like what I had pre-booked, so went to ExpertFlyer to see how the seatmap looked. Lo and behold, the flight doesn't come up at all.

Upon closer look, I got a shock to see that our return ORD-CPH on 6 January had been changed to 7 January. However, our connecting flight from MCO-ORD remained on 6 January. So they rescheduled us with a 26-hour layover in Chicago.

I phoned Travellink.dk and they claim that this change was made by SAS on September 12th, the day they cancelled the 6 January ORD-CPH flight. I was never informed of this change previously (and nearly overlooked it in today's email with the other slight schedule change).

I could not understand why our flight would be moved by 24 hours without being told (neither my husband nor I have an extra vacation day for a delayed return), nor why they would leave us departing MCO on the original flight and not shift the entire day's itinerary.

The agent from Travellink.dk explained that SAS did the cancellation and reschedule and most likely did not even see the other legs of our trip, so wouldn't have known that the reschedule was unreasonable. I've asked her to fix it with a connection via EWR or IAD on 6 January, and she tells me that only SAS can do that!

She has called SAS and it is now in their hands, and they will not revert to me today. I can see from Travellink's website that there are seats available returning CO from MCO-EWR, and the EWR-CPH on 6 January. But SK's site does not offer this option. I have experienced that SK does not offer all options, particularly on non-* airlines.

I'm getting a little hysterical and worried about what will happen. Travellink tells me that if SAS cannot come up with a reasonable alternative, that my non-refundable ticket could probably be refunded. But this is our Christmas trip and I cannot find any other reasonable alternatives for a reasonable fare!

The problem isn't finding seats on either of the other SK options from the U.S. (IAD or EWR), but getting a domestic connection from MCO at that time of year. It was tough enough to find a decent flight in June when I originally booked. Even if we could change our work schedules and accept the rescheduled return on 7 January, we cannot get a flight from MCO-ORD on 7 January, and we aren't sitting in Chicago for 26 hours in January.

I don't understand why Travellink cannot make the change based on flights they have available in their inventory, since my booking is with them (eg. the CO via EWR connection). If it is up to SK's discretion, can we be forced to take a less-than-desirable itinerary? I've asked Travellink to suggest the CO/EWR connection to SAS, but she doesn't know if they will accept it as an option.

I spend a lot of time booking our flights, always with a reasonable itinerary in mind, and never more than one connection, since even the best itinerary still gives us an 18-20 hour travel day.

What are my options if SK does not offer a reasonable alternative? What are their obligations to give me a reasonable alternative that at least resembles the same date and time as we were originally scheduled to travel? Can they insist we delay our return by a full 24 hours? If a reasonable connection is available on our original travel date, even if it isn't with one of their regular partners, can I insist they give it to us?

Am I learning the dangers of booking with travel agents and not going through the airlines directly? At the time of booking, SK's price was double what I paid for worse connections, and the connections I got weren't even an option. (The ticket still cost much more than we've paid for the last dozen trips, no doubt due to the season.)

Thanks for any advice before I brace myself to deal with this tomorrow.

Susan

If your tickets are issued, you can make an "involuntary rerouting" to the EWR connection with seating in same service class. For ex. if booked in W-class and only V-class is open via EWR it is no problem. No additional fee for you.
Travellink.dk can rebook but I think a SAS Office need to reissue the tickets.
If your agent won´t help you - call SAS reservations for assistance.

SAS Salesinfo for travelagents shows:
Flight cancellations to/from USA and Asia due to installation of flat beds
Introduction
Due to installation of new flat beds in Business Class of the A340 fleet, it has become necessary to cancel a number of flights to/from the United States and Asia. The affected flights were removed from reservation systems on 01SEP06.

Rebookings
Passengers will be rebooked to other SAS flights whenever possible. Schedule change messages will be forwarded in PNR:s to responsible offices.

Refund
Permitted

Period
06JAN07 - 21MAR07

Affected flights
SK943 SK944 - CPH-CHI v.v.
SK983 SK984 - CPH-NRT v.v.
SK997 SK998 - CPH-PVG v.v.

Here is the info regarding airlines do and dont´s.

Swedish: http://www.sas.se/upload/Sweden/Help...ativ261_SE.pdf

English
http://www.scandinavian.net/12372/No...ger_Eng_a4.pdf

According to this the airline does not have to do much if the scedulechange/Cancellation is made at least 14 days before departure. See the square in the text:

This compensation does not apply at all if:
we can prove that the cancellation is caused by extraordinary circumstances, which could not have been avoided even if all reasonable measures had been taken.

Such circumstances may, in particular, occur in cases of political instability, meteorological conditions incompatible with the operation of the flight concerned, security risks, unexpected flight safety shortcomings and strikes that affect the operation of an operating air carrier and impact of an air traffic management decision;

or you are informed of the cancellation at least two weeks before
the scheduled time of departure

or you are informed of the cancellation between two weeks and seven days before the scheduled time of departure and are offered re-routing, allowing you to depart no more than two hours before the scheduled time of departure and to reach your final destination less than four hours after the scheduled time of arrival;

or you are informed of the cancellation 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.

It was never compensation I was looking for, only a reasonable re-routing (not one with a 26 hour layover and a return to final destination delayed by 24 hours).

It took three phone calls of 30-40 minutes each today, but I finally succeeded to get the reschedule I wanted.

Initially, SAS insisted that I either accept a reschedule on the MCO-CPH itinerary via ORD either on the day prior or day after my original departure. I insisted that I wanted to keep my original travel date but would take a re-routing through another city (EWR or IAD).

They tried to say I absolutely had to take the same route (via ORD) as my original schedule, which I found ludicrous since they cancelled the flight for my travel day. I thought it was reasonable to request a re-routing via another city so that my original departure/arrival time was as close to the original booking as possible.

After several calls and being on hold a long time while the agent could check with a supervisor, they agreed to give me the re-routing on my original travel date through EWR with the CO flight from MCO to EWR. I had already checked expertflyer.com and there were plenty of seats available in all fare classes.

It surprised me they had such a problem with this, seeing as switching me to either the day prior or day after was also going to require them to book me on an already over-sold MCO-ORD flight.

So, bottom line, mission accomplished. It's a shame it has to require so much time and effort.

BTW, when I expressed to her my surprise that I had not been informed about this change earlier considering the flight was already cancelled on 1st September, she told me that they weren't required to inform passengers until 14 days prior to the departure! So they had no intention of telling me about this 24-hour delay (and 26-hour layover) until mid-December, when it would certainly have been too late to make a change. The only reason I found out was because one of my other connections had a slight schedule change (20 minutes) so I received an updated itinerary from Travellink.

Susan

I think one of the problems in this case was the rerouting to CO. CO is not their close partners and it probably costs them to reroute you to them. Their original plan was to use their own flights for you and it wouldn't cost them any money kind of.

And why would they inform you ver well in advance? So that all the passengers would have opportunity refund their reservations and SAS would lose even more money in the end? :D

This is game ... good that you managed to get everything sorted.

Understood. Although my outbound journey is via EWR with the domestic connection on CO. So my new itinerary is actually more uniform than the old one (both TATL flights via EWR, and both domestic flights via CO).

Yes, it was a relief to resolve it.

Susan

I had a similar problem last year for a flight during the Christmas season. I was flying on an SK itinerary TLL-CPH-IAD. The TLL-CPH leg was an SK code-share operated by OV. I bought my tickets many months in advance, and at the time the TLL-CPH flight existed.

As luck would have it, about a week before my flight I was checking OV's schedule and noticed such a flight no longer existed. OV decided to remove that particular flight from their schedule for the winter. SK had failed to inform me. I ended up flying TLL-ARN-CPH-IAD after pointing out to them tha my itinerary had a flight (TLL-CPH) that no longer existed, and the other TLL-CPH flights would arrive too late for CPH-IAD.

They said they inform customers when a flight is removed from the schedule, but apparently they forgot to inform me :rolleyes:

Justin

SusanDK,

I'm glad that you managed to re-route your tickets.

Adventures like this is the one and only reason why I left the travel industry. I just couldn't stand talking to all these people day in and day out. Although I see why there are regulations and why they sometimes hold on to information ($$), the customer should ALWAYS be #1! What makes me the most upset is how most people would never stand up like you.

Some tips that maybe most of this forum already know:

1. VISIT USA. Almost all US domestic airlines have "Visit USA" fares. It basically means that they discount tickets (a lot) given that you have an intercontinental flight into the US. This fare requires the travel agent to search in a different way which in almost all cases are not done. I doubt that the internet agents are doing it by default, at least it was not possible by anyone when I left last year. Since this requires extra knowledge and (more important) work for the travel agent this option will most likely not be presented to anyone who doesn't already know about it...

2. PAKETRESELAGEN (Only Swedish customers). For Swedish customers it is always a good idea to book at least two nights accomodation to your air tickets. This will increase your rights massively. If all dissatisfied customers knew about "Paketreselagen" it would be very costly for the travel agencies... Trust me that I know about this, I've worked with it and I've been in discussions whether to inform passengers on their rights or not... Another reason why I left!