BA flight cancelled but has been confirmed as still operating?

bartonerin

We booked return flights from Heathrow to Naples for 15th-21st September 2022. Back in May, we received a message to say that British Airways had cancelled our flight home so we rescheduled for an earlier flight that same day. This meant missing out on precious hours of our holiday and an awkward final day where we can't really do anything worthwhile.

We fly next week and have noticed our original flight is running again. Tickets are available to purchase and we have confirmed with a BA Adviser on the phone that our original flight is definitely still running. He said that BA may have cancelled it and then reinstated it. This all seems a bit suspect to me, and we simply want to be back on our original flight. It seems unfair for them to sell our tickets to new customers for more money while we're left with a shittier flight time.

Has anybody heard of this happening before? Is it a new scam by airlines to resell the same seats for more money?

Westin

bartonerin said:

We booked return flights from Heathrow to Naples for 15th-21st September 2022. Back in May, we received a message to say that British Airways had cancelled our flight home so we rescheduled for an earlier flight that same day. This meant missing out on precious hours of our holiday and an awkward final day where we can't really do anything worthwhile.

We fly next week and have noticed our original flight is running again. Tickets are available to purchase and we have confirmed with a BA Adviser on the phone that our original flight is definitely still running. He said that BA may have cancelled it and then reinstated it. This all seems a bit suspect to me, and we simply want to be back on our original flight. It seems unfair for them to sell our tickets to new customers for more money while we're left with a shittier flight time.

Has anybody heard of this happening before? Is it a new scam by airlines to resell the same seats for more money?

No, it isn't.

onashoestring

Did you ask BA to move you back to your original flight?  If you can provide proof of that original booking and that BA cancelled it , contact them again . It may take a bit of time and dialogue but  I have always found BA customer service to be very helpful. 

JPears

I think you have every right to expect BA to put you back on your original flight.

Hopefully BA customer services can now actually be contacted unlike June and July of this year.

You could also try on twitter. They might be able to do something via DM.

Have you tried changing the flight on "Manage my booking"?

bartonerin

Thanks everyone. I've managed to speak to someone on Twitter and it seems I was right. They have told me they do not contact customers to let them know the flight they booked has been reinstated as 'due to system limitations that wouldn't be possible'. As if in 2022 they can't find the bookings on their system and email everyone to at least offer!

I have asked for seats on the original flight so will update on here if successful.

jimi_man

To be perfectly fair to BA, they had to cancel flights due to the Heathrow cap. Then, because the numbers became available they've been able to reinstate them again, so it's not a scam. Clearly they don't want to have to cancel flights at all.

In relation to emailing all the original passengers and asking them if they want to change back, that's impractical. Yours won't be the only flight and to it with every single passenger and monitoring the responses is going to take a mammoth effort to oversee.

If you don't have any luck getting your original seats back and you still want to change flights, then assuming you don't have an HBO fare, you can change it on the day of travel for free.