Refunds, refunds everywhere! Flight cancellations continue to rain on me

Just when you thought it was safe to travel, flight cancellations continue to occur. Airlines are consolidating flights and not operating empty services, a good thing for both their bottom line and the environment.

Perhaps it’s not particularly good for the passengers who have booked in good faith though. Either way, in my case it has resulted in a blizzard of refunds, so I’m not out of pocket anyway.

Flight Cancellations Continue

The first inkling was when Japan Airlines cancelled my flight from Tokyo Haneda to Sydney. There was no alternative JAL service, so I received a full refund of €450 or so and my Avios. I rebooked on the Qantas service the same night, which was about €96 plus some Avios, a nice saving. I’ll miss the excellent Japan Airlines premium economy for Qantas economy, but it’s no big deal.

In July I was scheduled to fly Sydney to Hong Kong on Cathay Pacific and Hong Kong to London to Oslo on British Airways. The Cathay Pacific flight has been unavailable for months, but I had not been officially told it had been canned. Turns out BA have recently pulled their Hong Kong services, so I was informed by e-mail.

After a phone call, I rebooked onto Sydney to London via Singapore and dropped the London to Oslo leg, which I only had because it was cheaper to book the return ticket to there. I had a connecting flight booked with Scandinavian Airlines, and in my wisdom I had booked a fully refundable ticket. I promptly cancelled that, received a €300 refund and booked a far cheaper (€95 and 5,750 Avios) London to Dublin with BA in its place.

Today another BA flight was cancelled for next month, London to Dublin. There was no alternative that worked, so that was another €180 refund, to be replaced by an Aer Lingus flight at half the price. I also randomly received notification that a Covid test I had booked for January and subsequently cancelled would be refunded today for another €35. Very unexpected!

Overall Thoughts

So, flight cancellations continue and I guess I am lucky that I am able to easily switch to alternatives. Others are not so lucky, as timings and frequency can be bad depending on the destination.

It seems like it’s going to take a while for everything to shake out and get completely back to normal. Catering is still not back in certain places (I’m looking at you British Airways and Irish Rail), there are issues with staff at airports, and all sorts of pain still happening at an operational level. Fingers crossed there are no more cancellations for me!

Have you experienced flight cancellations recently? Has it ruined your plans or have you managed to get suitable alternatives? Thank you for reading and if you have any comments or questions, please leave them below.

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Featured image by JT Genter via here.