British Airways cancelled return flight

lottietat

Hi,

My brother flew in from Canada to Gatwick and was getting a BA flight from Gatwick up to Manchester, but missed that flight by 10 minutes. BA wouldn't have any of it and he had to pay another £440 to buy new tickets for his wife and two children.

At the end of his holiday, he went to Manchester airport to get the flight back down to Gatwick and was told he wasn't on the flight. He showed his email confirmation of the original return flight he had booked and was told that because he had missed his original flight, he had broken the contract and his return flight was cancelled too. He was never told of this when he had missed his original flight. BA would have none of it and he then had to pay another £496 to book flights to Gatwick. In total, his return flight from Gatwick to Manchester had cost nearly £1500 for 4 people!!!

The small print does say that if you miss your flight, you cancel the contract, but wouldn't it have been nice, having paid for the flights twice over already for BA to have at least given a reduction.

Anyone else had similar experience and is it worth following it up with BA?

Thanks

Hintza

After reading the first paragraph I didn't have any sympathy for missing a flight. But wow; I would not have guessed the contract was voided for the return leg.

Hope he can appeal to their better nature, good luck.

My only thought would be were the flights all booked together as part of a package? Or did he book them separately?

System

That is pretty standard for a lot of airlines. If you fail to use the outward leg then the return leg is cancelled/voided.
Air France have a similar condition.

peachyprice

What have his travel insurance company said? If he missed his flight through no fault of his own he may be covered for at least the incoming flight to Manchester.

(£440 + £496 = £936, not £1500 )

Laz123

It would have been good customer service policy to have verbally told him of this stupid and very anal condition. Surely at best they should refund the return flight. This is extracting money under false pretences.

I never use BA.

System

Having just checked 3 other major airlines they all have the following or similar in their T&Cs

The Ticket will not be honored and will lose its validity if all the Flight Coupons are not used in the sequence provided in the Ticket

So it would appear to be a fairly standard term for airlines who issue return/multi-destination tickets.

gordikin

peachyprice wrote: »

...(£440 + £496 = £936, not £1500 )

The OP is counting in the original cost of the flight I think.

DrScotsman

This...really doesn't seem right. This guy misses his flight, causing BA little-to-no inconvenience, and he loses his return leg? Is there some security related reason for this?

I'm not going to bother with this one right now. I'll just post the link, come back in a bit and see if anyone has come up with anything.

Zazen999

Hintza wrote: »

After reading the first paragraph I didn't have any sympathy for missing a flight.

I took it to mean that he missed the flight because he got into Gatwick late, the time of arrival being not under his control due to being on a flight into Gatwick at the time....but he could obviously have just been shilly shallying in the Duty Free for too long.

unholyangel

It is standard practice for all flight operators to cancel a return journey if the outward leg is not used. And personally i think in 95% of cases, its not a "anal condition" as it is logical if the outward isnt used, they wont need the return journey.....no? Of course you do sometimes get something like this happening, which is where the other 5% come in.

If you booked the flights all together (ie booked flights from Canada to Machester) then you may have some sort of redress with whoever you booked them from.

However, if they were booked seperately, then even if your flight is late, you may not be entitled to a refund of any kind.

The reason for this obviously is in the first case you have a contract to go from Canada to Machester via Gatwick. In the latter you have 2 contracts.....one to go from Canada to Gatwick, then a completely seperate one to go from Gatwick to Manchester.

It is always worth checking with your travel insurance company to see if they offer compensation for this type of thing.

pinkshoes

!!!!!! wrote: »

That is pretty standard for a lot of airlines. If you fail to use the outward leg then the return leg is cancelled/voided.
Air France have a similar condition.

It may be pretty standard, but given he missed the first flight rather than just not turning up, then spoke to the airline and PAID for another flight, then this is pretty poor customer service from BA, and definitely warrants a complaint.

At the very least they should have explained that his return flight was now cancelled.