Air France Flight Cancellation

Halstat

My daughter booked flights with Air France from London Heathrow via Paris Charles de Gaulle, to Bangkok.  The Air France flight from Heathrow was delayed and missed the connecting flight in Paris.  She had upgraded to business class on the Paris to Bangkok leg of the journey.  They put her on a flight the next day to Bangkok but had no space in Business Class.  She claimed compensation for the missed connection due to their delay at Heathrow and for the loss of the Business Class seat.  She has now seen that they have cancelled the return leg from Bangkok back to Heathrow, stating that as she has claimed compensation, they have cancelled her return flight and she is not entitled to any refund of the fare. Surely this cannot be correct?  They have paid her £550 compensation.  A new flight will be £1300 on top of what she has already paid.

eskbanker

It's normal for an inbound leg of a return booking to be cancelled if the passenger didn't travel on the booked outward one, but that shouldn't apply where it was the airline's fault/responsibility, so probably an admin error?

Or did they literally say that they've cancelled a confirmed booking specifically because of a compensation claim - perhaps worth copy/pasting the exact wording used?

kazwookie

What does her holiday insurance say about delayed flights?

Was this the 15th Jan by any chance, as OH got caught up in that as well, but from a different UK airport. He managed to make all his connecting flights from AMS to CdG, then to BKK, but has to run along the concourses to get there.!!

Halstat

She spoke to their call centre on the phone and they said because she had claimed a refund on the business class part of the fare she had paid for the outward journey,  she had effectively cancelled her own return flight.  She has had no emails from them telling her the flight had been cancelled.

eskbanker

Halstat said:

She spoke to their call centre on the phone and they said because she had claimed a refund on the business class part of the fare she had paid for the outward journey,  she had effectively cancelled her own return flight. 

There's a difference between claiming compensation and claiming a refund!  What did they pay and how did it relate to what she'd originally paid?

Halstat said:

She has had no emails from them telling her the flight had been cancelled.

Has the flight been cancelled or just her booking on it?

Voyager2002

Halstat said:

She spoke to their call centre on the phone and they said because she had claimed a refund on the business class part of the fare she had paid for the outward journey,  she had effectively cancelled her own return flight.  She has had no emails from them telling her the flight had been cancelled.

Claiming a refund is very different from claiming compensation.

The compensation for a downgrade is a very significant amount of money, and she should have received far more than the £550 you quote.

I think she needs to communicate via online chat, messaging or whatever so that she has a record of exactly what was said. In the short term, perhaps she could contact them by voice-call (perhaps to their Bangkok office) making it clear that she does not want a refund and does not accept any refund payments. And of course they had no right to cancel her flight home.

Did they give any reason for the delay to her flight from Heathrow? Normally airlines give an excuse rather than paying compensation: I suspect that they said the delay was not their fault and processed a refund rather than paying compensation.

Westin

Halstat said:

She spoke to their call centre on the phone and they said because she had claimed a refund on the business class part of the fare she had paid for the outward journey,  she had effectively cancelled her own return flight.  She has had no emails from them telling her the flight had been cancelled.

She claimed a refund, how?

She didn’t instigate a refund by disputing the payment for the upgrade with her credit card company did she? 

The return flight (or subsequent flight sectors) may be cancelled if a prior flight segment was missed or if there has been some type of financial issue with the reservation (payment dispute). The first reason might be just be an error by AF after the initial flight disruption and need a call to AF to resolve.  The second reason would be much more unfortunate for her.

Halstat

She has claimed compensation for the delay of 24 hours in Paris and claimed a refund of the additional business class upgrade she paid at Heathrow, that AF was not able to honour on the new flight.  The call centre has said that by claiming this refund she has cancelled the return leg of the journey

eskbanker

Halstat said:

She has claimed compensation for the delay of 24 hours in Paris and claimed a refund of the additional business class upgrade she paid at Heathrow, that AF was not able to honour on the new flight.  The call centre has said that by claiming this refund she has cancelled the return leg of the journey

I wonder if this may come down to how the upgrade refund was requested or processed - the flight delay/cancellation regulations specify that a long-haul downgrade should be handled via a 75% reimbursement of the ticket cost, but I don't know how it's dealt with if there was a separate upgrade fee paid at the time of travel, rather than within the original booking.

I still can't see how the return leg would be affected, but would certainly agree that communicating in writing would be better than verbally....

Halstat

Thank you all for your assistance - I will ask her to contact them via their chat/social media to see if she can sort it out before purchasing another flight home.

Voyager2002

Halstat said:

She has claimed compensation for the delay of 24 hours in Paris and claimed a refund of the additional business class upgrade she paid at Heathrow, that AF was not able to honour on the new flight.  The call centre has said that by claiming this refund she has cancelled the return leg of the journey

A terrible mistake! The compensation for being downgraded against your will is much more than a simple refund.

I am surprised that they agreed to the delay compensation without first trying to make an excuse.

Neither of these transactions should have resulted in the cancellation of her flight home. I think the most probable explanation is that she was recorded as a no-show on the Paris-Bangkok sector, and they did not realise that this was because of the failure of their own connecting flight.