Follow These Tips if an Airline Reschedules Your Flight
I have business and personal flight reservations for this summer and both itineraries have already had schedule changes. My personal trip is with family who are departing from another city and their flight schedules have changed as well.
While the airlines have announced that they will increase their flights to 80 percent or more of pre-pandemic numbers, it seems they are already consolidating flights and routes. In both of our flight schedule changes, flights were changed from non-stop to connecting flights, meaning they have canceled some non-stop flights to combine with passengers through their gateway or another flight load. This adjustment for demand includes flight frequency, aircraft type, and flight times.
When this happens, do you know what to do and what your rights are?
In the event your flight time has change or has been canceled and rescheduled, Know Your Passenger Rights
First and foremost, you do not have to accept the rescheduled itinerary if it doesn’t suit you.
If your flight times have changed more than two hours different from the original departure time, and you are unhappy with the new schedule, you are also entitled to a refund.
If the airline cancels your flight and puts you on a schedule that requires a connection when you originally booked a nonstop flight, you are entitled to a full refund.
Your rights are according to the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT), stating “customers are entitled to a refund regardless of the reason” if the booked flight is canceled by the airline.
What you should do if your flight is changed or canceled!
You don’t have to accept the new schedule. Advise the airline that this schedule does not suit your travel plans, and you will need to look into other options either with them or another airline. Do not cancel your reservation but before you accept the new itinerary, check to see if there is a more convenient schedule on another airline. Once you have determined what is best for you, decide to cancel with the original airline and start over with a new ticket purchase. Or accept the schedule change offer from the original airline.
In our case, the airline first advised us that we would have to accept a credit but, knowing this was not the case, we insisted and were advised how to request the refund. We decided to make reservations with another airline.
NOTES: Airlines are required to rebook you on an alternative flight within their network and notify you of major flight schedule changes. This notification will come by email and/or text, depending on your provided contact information. However, notifications don’t always get to you because of system failure, it’s in your spam folder, or you don’t check your email regularly. For all of these reasons, it is important to check your flight periodically.
You can learn more about your rights at FlyersRights.org and at the U.S. Department of Transportation website.
