Finnair saying they can’t re-route, and only offering a refund. Help please

[VickyTM]

I have a flight on Thursday with Finnair from LHR – HEL. The flight has been cancelled and they say there are no other options. I have said I’m happy to travel from any other airport, via any airport, including a suggested flight from Brussels that I could get to, but they say that the airlines instructions won’t allow that.
They also won’t confirm if I book a new flight with someone else, whether they will cover the costs.

Can anyone advice me what my legal position is here. I have a vague understanding of EU261, but don’t know whether that would apply here. They want me to cancel the flight, but I suspect if I do that, I loose any bargaining position I have… Although that isn’t going too well so far…

Please help…

[JDB]

You are legally entitled to be rerouted under EC/UK261 per Articles 5 & 8 however, if you are unable to persuade AY to do that for you, and they clearly refuse to comply with the law (take notes, time etc or record), you will need to buy new tickets and claim afterwards. You should, if the cost is justifiable/reasonable, get your money back, but you may have to fight and will be out of pocket for weeks/months. If you do make your own arrangements for the outbound, you need to check that your return is protected if also with AY. In respect of compensation, AY will almost certainly cite ‘exceptional circumstances’ as this looks like a Heathrow cap cancellation.

[Lady London]

Flight Cancellations and Changes category heading here on HfP is stuffed with threads wuth answers to this daily.

Find the nearest flight on Finnair. It may be on a later day. They should agree to put you on this relatively easily. You are entitled to accommodation and full meals per day until this flight if you are away from home. Finnair is obliged to reimburse you – I suggest you get them to rebook you then reminx them at the end of the conversaton.

If you need to travel same day then present them with 2 or 3 choices if you can find them. if they refuse then illegal and they are playing hardball illegally hoping you don’t have the funds or can’t be ar$ed to book yourself and claim off them. Rest assured they are responsible and would owe you though. For this reason keep detailed records immediately after each call time, date, who you spoke to this proves you gave them the opportunity. If first flight on ticket can be kept to Finnair they are more likely to do it but may still resist. They owe you meals and hotel for any required extra travelling time here too.

They must do this for you whether compensation applies or not. Try to get them to say a resson for the cancellation and then verify it

[VickyTM]

Does re-routing cover me starting from a completely different airport? I’m not looking for compensation, just them covering additional costs.

Thanks

[VickyTM]

@lady London, thanks. I have to be there same day unfortunately, and I gave them a couple of options and they just said no. I just didn’t know if it has to be an identical route, as trying to get any flights from LHR at the moment isn’t an option.

[PeteM]

I suspect you will just need to find whatever flights suit you, VickyTM, pay for those yourself and then try and claim from Finnair.

I imagine they won’t budge when you contact their customer service team on your return, so you will need to take them to small claims court (aka Money Claim Online (MCOL)). Finnair do not subscribe to any alternative dispute resolution (ADR) services, so that route is sadly out of the question.

As explained above, if you still want to return with Finnair you’ll need to ask them to protect your outbound against a no-show.

As JDB says, it’s not particularly easy and you will be out of pocket for a while.

[Lady London]

VickyTM wrote:

Does re-routing cover me starting from a completely different airport? I’m not looking for compensation, just them covering additional costs.

Thanks

No choosing to start from a different airport such as if they force you to rebook yourself weakens you. If that’s the only way then you’d have a good chance of being reimbursed but you’d have to show other available alternatives to make the journey at the time you needed were about the same or worse.

However you should be ok if you are forced to book yourself on an LCC from such as Gatwick, Luton or even Birmingham. And if there is a direct flight from Brussels and you keep the start of your journey London even if you’re taking Eurostar then from Lodon claim everything as it’s the same start and end points.

Can Finnair take you to any other airport in Scandinavia from London, from which you could reach your destination by an air connection or even by ground transport? You’d be covered for costs to final destination to do that.

[Lady London]

Ryanair from Stansted and Gatwick.is this Norwegian? may have flights?

[Lady London]

deleted

[Lady London]

Jusr checked and Ryanair from Stansted and Norwegian from Gatwick do have flights but sold out till next week. Clearly Finnair is doing fhe dirty on a lot of passengers as all those flights wouldn’t normally be full.

Haven’t cbecked SAS but if they’re full too then I’d look at Eurostar to Paris Amsterdam or Brussels and from there to HEL and charge Finnair for the whole thing

• This reply was modified 55 years, 4 months ago by .

[VickyTM]

I’ve managed to find a BA flight going to Hamburg from LHR then a Finnair from Hamburg to Helsinki. Shall see what happens. Unfortunately Finnair were using the line, “its against the airlines instructions” when I was arguing that they should re-route me. Thanks for your help everyone. I shall attempt to claim back after I get back.

[Lady London]

Very well done Vicky.

What I hadn’t realised was that SAS pilots have just been on a 2-week strike and so that’s why the LCC flights were all full as well.

Yoi have done really well to find that reroute and I hope it goes well.

Keep all your notes and claim absolutely everything you have a right to.

[JDB]

Lady London wrote:

Very well done Vicky.

What I hadn’t realised was that SAS pilots have just been on a 2-week strike and so that’s why the LCC flights were all full as well.

Yoi have done really well to find that reroute and I hope it goes well.

Keep all your notes and claim absolutely everything you have a right to.

The SAS strike settled yesterday with pilots agreeing a 5 1/2 year deal including a 25% pay cut and some redundancies and a reserve list like BA. The airline entered bankruptcy at the start of the strike and this will now enable them to raise funding to finance themselves during the bankruptcy reorganisation process. Makes BA look like pussy cats.