flight change

[blondegirl]

It will be interesting to hear how the Easy Jet flights get on this year.  So far, so good!

[kes]

Yes Viv...same old story..we have booked XL but are flying Air Malta? we had a minor alteration to the flight time but not to drastic..fingers crossed

[Grockle]

Hi All,

Having a break from the packing !! thought I would have a read of the forum
our flights with Thomas Cook have been changed with very little notice now
we are flying out and get to Corfu landing about midnight !! never been to Corfu before so by the time we get to Arillas presume sometime early hours of the morning
hope we dont feel too grumpy  !! would hate to make a bad impression on the poor Hotel owners who have to put up with this stupid time to come and visit.  I shall
save a smile because what the heck I cannot wait to visit only 8 days to go !!

Bye all, back to the ironong.

Regards Grockle

[Smiffypink]

All these flight changes, its ridiculous!!

I wonder why it is that they change so much??

[Joe]

there can be many many reasons but usually its one of 3

Overbooking at the commercial planning stage, these are the airline teams who decide how many and who to sell these seats to, be it the Tour Operator, direct or 3rd Party. These are planned maybe a year in advance but often the aircraft will change so for example a CFU flight that was planned on a Boeing 757 with 235 seats but for a myriad of reasons was later changed to an Airbus A320 with 180 seats, causing 55 passengers to overspill.

Consolidation. For prices to remain competitive aircraft need to be full, a situation even worse now with the fuel prices. If there are 2 half full Corfu flights going from Manchester within a reasonable time of each other then they might be merged. Be grateful if you fly charter to Corfu if this was scheduled chances are it would be just be cancelled. One thing travellers never seem to made fully aware of is that flight times are not and never will be guaranteed, its on your ticket, hidden on the back in the conditions small print, conditions you agree to when purchasing the ticket. Good piece of advice, more so these days always read what you are agreeing to.

Slots. Aircraft can not just roll down the runway and take off whenever they want, slots must be bought and these can be pretty tight, these effectively allow the flight to operate a safe path through the air and all ATC regions. Most slots are in high demand and during the start of the season will often change. You will always notice Flight Deck and Cabin Crew pushing to get away on time this is to make the slot, a delay of even 10 minutes can cause this slot to be missed and the next available one may be 3 hours away.This also explains why day flights are much more expensive than deep night flights, the 'good' slots cost much more.

[Erja]

Well explained Joe! Us mere mortals have sometimes hard time understanding the reasons behind the delays, especially once that you are already sitting in the plane and the announce an hour and a half delay in taking off (happens almost only when travelling with BA).

[Joe]

You will not believe how much delays cost us and then thats not taking into account our reputation. Delays are horrific but I now sit next to the Ops teams and I see how hard they work to minimise serious delays and how angry they get when things spiral further out of control.

[TerryW]

Thanks for posting that information Joe, very interesting. I just hope that my flight with Monarch from Birmingham does not get changed from 6.30am. Thats a lovely time to depart for a holiday.

[Maggie]

I agree terry, we fly at 5.30, and arrive just in time for lunch!!! What more could we ask for??