Please Help, Flight Times Changed

Thrugelmir

silvercar said:

Interesting that holidays are less accommodating than booking direct with airlines. BA have moved a lot of flights from Gatwick to Heathrow and are far more helpful when flight times have changed.

BA suspended flights out of Gatwick on 1st April. May never resume again. A very different situation. 

bagand96

silvercar said:

Interesting that holidays are less accommodating than booking direct with airlines. BA have moved a lot of flights from Gatwick to Heathrow and are far more helpful when flight times have changed.

It's a bit of a hangover from the 80s and 90s when there were loads of smaller tour operators and charter airlines. Tour operators would plan their programmes over a year in advance - but the flights were a best guess. A lot could and would change, they could switch airlines for a better deal, charter airlines could go bust, new charter airlines appear etc. 

These days the industry is very different, far less tour operators for a start and far far less charter airlines. Most big tour operators have an in-house airline that basically operate like a scheduled airline.  Smaller operators just buy capacity on low cost airlines scheduled flights. So it's a all a lot more stable (in normal times) but the T&C clauses remain.  

Swings and roundabouts using tour operators or DIYing it yourself. Pros and cons for both. I'm generally DIY but for the rest of this year and into next I'll only book a package for some rights under the Package Regs.