Codeshare cancelled flight but flight is still operating

[jamesrob92]

I have a flight booked on the 22nd July from LHR to Seychelles with Qatar Airways. The first leg of the flight from LHR to Doha operated by British Airways, followed by a flight from Doha to Seychelles with Qatar.
Today I received an email saying that my booking has been cancelled because BA have cancelled the first flight, I then rang Qatar Airways and after an hour long conversation I have had to move my booking to the 25th and flying out from Manchester!

When I spoke to BA this flight is still operating and seats can be purchased online for this flight. It turns out BA have changed the codeshare on this flight which shows up on QA system as a cancelled flight – after ringing QA back to make this complaint they’re refusing to put me back on this flight because on their system this flight is still “cancelled”.

Has anyone had a similar experience before? Or have any knowledge of how I can get put back on this flight or if I am entitled to compensation?

All help is appreciated.
Thanks,

• This topic was modified 55 years, 3 months ago by .

[AJA]

If Qatar Airways has cancelled your flight then EC261 kicks in and should allow a reroute at earliest convenience. As it is you are now scheduled to arrive 3 days later than initially scheduled which means significant compensation payment for all pax on the reservation.

You might have to fight Qatar for it though. And it sounds like they won’t reroute you since you’ve accepted change to 25th via MAN already.

[JDB]

It’s quite a tricky one because, per the poster, the flight wasn’t actually cancelled; an erroneous cancellation message was received, so it may be hard to persuade BA as the operating carrier to pay UK261 if their flight operates as scheduled on the day.

With everything being so fluid at the moment one needs to examine all the options carefully before agreeing to any changes.

• This reply was modified 55 years, 3 months ago by .

[Lady London]

@jamesrob92 can take the cancellation as a cancellation for EU UK 261 purposes. Which as @AJA points out, does have some $$$ advantages although persistence in following steps is required.

After all, if a flight or your cabin is overbooked and you are offloaded, or if the airline wants your seat back for some other reason, then what you receive from the airline is the exact same cancellation notice. It’s not really for you to reason why : you’ve been cancelled, take it at face value.

If I were you I would ask BA for a copy of tbe recording of the call now – since you changed routing I wouldn’t put it past them to later claim your change was voluntary and they did you a favour.

[ChrisC]

The BA flight hasn’t been cancelled though but the QR code share apparently has been changed and that is tricky when it comes to exerting any EU/UK261 rights.

BA don’t allocate code share numbers the other airline offering the flight does – so in this case QR – and for whatever reason QR deleted their number on the BA flight (and there is no evidence the BA flight has been cancelled or had a change in schedyle).

If you tried to claim againt BA their response would be ‘our flight operated’

And since this has been booked via QR they and not BA are the ones to sort out any reroute.

I’m not sure what the utilify of requesting a recording of any call to BA is.

[chamindaRana]

Hi I have the same issue now. They have cancelled the BA flight form Colombo to Doha. Rest of my flights are all operated by Qatar airways. Please help me find a solution.

[NorthernLass]

There’s no BA flight on that route, it must be a codeshare and I would guess also on QR?

Have you looked at re-booking options, e.g. looking in MMB or contacting whoever you made the booking with?

You’re unlikely to have EU/UK261 re-routing rights but you should be given an alternative. Also double check it’s not an erroneous cancellation message.