Ryanair have changed flight time but are still selling the original flight........

time2change_2

I booked flights for a group of friends travelling to France in May - flights booked (in January) for 20th May & return on 23rd May. On booking, the flight numbers were FR522/FR523, I have been sent an email tonight changing the return flight to Wednesday 25th May still as FR523. This doesn't work for us so we will either need to cancel or use their "free change" subject to additional flight charges if necessary (& guess what - we got a good deal so they will cost more!).

The website still has the same flight we booked for 23rd May but now as RK523 - I believe this is Ryanair UK as opposed to Ryanair. 

Anyone know if they are allowed to do this - it seems wrong to me as to all intents & purposes it is the same flight we had originally booked. 

CKhalvashi

You in law can request a re-routing at your convenience, however Ryanair will go all out to stop you doing this.

An operator change between FR to RK or vice versa simply means you'll be on a UK-registered aircraft instead of an EU-registered aircraft (which could be from Ireland, Malta or Poland, with Malta Air and Buzz operating flights on behalf of Ryanair).

As long as they have slots, they fully have the right to cancel your flight and offer a suitable alternative on another airline, which it looks like they have done.

time2change_2

Thanks for that information CKHalvashi.

What they've done is change the carrier running the original flight and "changed" our scheduled time. I want to go back to the original one as we can't travel on the later flight.

I just know changing back is going to cost us (and as it's 10 of us in total it will be expensive)

Is there anything I should say to force them to put us back without additional charges?

CKhalvashi

time2change_2 said:

Thanks for that information CKHalvashi.

What they've done is change the carrier running the original flight and "changed" our scheduled time. I want to go back to the original one as we can't travel on the later flight.

I just know changing back is going to cost us (and as it's 10 of us in total it will be expensive)

Is there anything I should say to force them to put us back without additional charges?

You should have the option to change the flights for those on the same day in the email confirming the cancellation. You may have to do this via the live chat service.

This will be option 2 in the e-mail they've sent you.



If one of your flights has been cancelled, you should be able to move this online for free without contacting an agent, and this option will be less restricted.

time2change_2

Thanks for your help @CKhalvashi.  A long time on chat but they swapped us back to the original flights with no additional fees

bagand96

Likely just an IT error.  They may have been changing the flight on their scheduling systems from Ryanair (FR) to Ryanair UK (RK) and for some reason the reservations system has picked this up as a cancelled flight and generated cancellation emails etc.  It's of course not a cancelled flight, just the operating carrier has changed (which to customers makes no difference) so there's no need to move passengers.

CKhalvashi

time2change_2 said:

Thanks for your help @CKhalvashi.  A long time on chat but they swapped us back to the original flights with no additional fees

Happy you've got a good result in this case that is satisfactory to both you and Ryanair.

bagand96 said:

Likely just an IT error.  They may have been changing the flight on their scheduling systems from Ryanair (FR) to Ryanair UK (RK) and for some reason the reservations system has picked this up as a cancelled flight and generated cancellation emails etc.  It's of course not a cancelled flight, just the operating carrier has changed (which to customers makes no difference) so there's no need to move passengers.

OH's employer changed a series of flight numbers in 2020 to free up some blocks, and was told that they had to change them as a scheduled change when a new season went on sale rather than be able to change the flight numbers of existing flights, even though the flight times or operating carriers hadn't changed. This was mainly a series of routes that had previously operated within the group in a 'W' pattern (Somewhere-her base-somewhere else-her base-somewhere, being the her base-somewhere else-her base sector), or from an old base that has now closed, but the routes still exist from her base.

FR1 is therefore legally a different flight to RK1, where FR1 operated by Ryanair (on an EI-based aircraft) changing to FR1 (operated by Buzz/Malta Air) at the same time may not be. This is not necessarily in line with my personal viewas long as timings have not changed, but is seemingly the opinion of the UK CAA.

Please note that the airline OH works for is not Ryanair.

leftism

I just came here to post about this exact thing. 

Our flights were ‘changed’ to 30 hours earlier (for a weekend break) so we asked for a refund and had to book new flights with a different airline. 

But the original Ryanair flight remains on sale! In fact, people I know have recently booked onto it. 

It’s almost as if they were trying their luck to move us onto a less popular flight and resell our seats on the popular one. 

Their customer service is AWFUL