What happens to my holiday??

SaverSueG

Hi.

There is a doc on the Abta site www.abta.com/consumer-services/travel_information/ash-faqs. This states if the flight is delayed, if the delay results in a significant change to the holiday then .. the tour operator must offer the choice of an alternative or a refund. The definition of significant change should be a change of more than 12 hours (in the t & c?). So this is no different to cancellation.

We're going soon (I hope) - with Thomson though - so I have printed off this doc for info in case we need it.

I suppose they would prefer you to miss some of your holiday (doesn't cost them), but it looks to me like you have the right to a refund. NB I'm no expert so please correct me if I've misunderstood.

lme123_2

SaverSueG wrote: »

Hi.

There is a doc on the Abta site www.abta.com/consumer-services/travel_information/ash-faqs. This states if the flight is delayed, if the delay results in a significant change to the holiday then .. the tour operator must offer the choice of an alternative or a refund. The definition of significant change should be a change of more than 12 hours (in the t & c?). So this is no different to cancellation.

We're going soon (I hope) - with Thomson though - so I have printed off this doc for info in case we need it.

I suppose they would prefer you to miss some of your holiday (doesn't cost them), but it looks to me like you have the right to a refund. NB I'm no expert so please correct me if I've misunderstood.

Thanks for that, i will print info 2, so hope everything will be on for saturday when we go (thats if we do!!)

lme123_2

Cityboy wrote: »

As far as definitions are concerned, the concept of cancellation as opposed to delay or re-schedule is reasonably straighforward since a number of ECJ court decisions have been reached and decided such definitions in relation to EC 261/2004.

Briefly, "cancellation means the non-operation of a flight which was previously planned and on which at least one place was reserved".

Let me just give you an example: an airline operates a weekly schedule from one airport to another flying once per day between the 2, thus totalling 7 flights per week in one direction (leaving the return flights aside for these purposes).

For a cancellation to have taken place, there would have been 6 or less flights on this schedule that week. If the flight had been merely delayed then the airline would still have flown 7 flights that week in total or 14 in two weeks if the delay was sufficiently bad to warrant it.

The concept of "re-scheduled" is not one recognised under the regulation as such but airlines attempt to use this as a bit of a smokescreen. It will usually refer to a delay but could well be interpreted on occasions as referring to a cancellation.

A useful reference tool is www.flightstats.co.uk which will usually tell you the flight status. I say usually since you should not rely on just one single reference source but cross check with other sources where appropriate.

Flight numbers being changed are not by themselves any guide as to whether a flight has been delayed or cancelled.

Trust this clarifies the definition you were after.

Thanks once again for reply, its so confusing...