Will airlines cancel flights this summer if there aren’t many passengers?

Simon Calder answers your questions on underbooked planes, problems with holiday refunds and whether it’s worthwhile to visit Paris at the moment

Bookings are likely to be consolidated this summer (Getty/iStock)

Q What is the minimum number of passengers in a flight in order for it to go ahead and not get cancelled?

Tracy L

A Zero. If an airline thinks that a round-trip will, on balance, be profitable, then it will certainly run an empty flight in one direction. The most obvious examples are at the beginning and end of the summer season: an airline will gladly fly out full to a Spanish or Greek island at the start of operations in May, and fly back empty. The converse applies at the end of the season – when the outbound service is empty or nearly so. Look out in an ordinary autumn for news stories at the end of October about how someone was the sole paying passenger on a flight to the Med. The (near) empty leg is a fact of airline life.

But the wider answer to your question is: it all depends. After the catastrophic spring and early summer for airline bookings, all the carriers are looking very closely at loads and cancelling flights– even though the brakes are off and we can now officially travel to a wide range of destinations.

The big problem is that the combination of the coronavirus pandemic and the government’s botched quarantine policy have squashed the bookings that should have been coming in at a steady rate in April, May and June.

With sales so forlorn, and muted appetite for adventure, the number of cancellations is actually likely to rise. After months of losing hundreds of millions of pounds collectively, they are disinclined to fly half-empty planes around Europe.

So expect a lot of “consolidation” – the industry term for combining flights. For example, where easyJet had 11 flights a day from London airports to Palma in Mallorca, it is currently operating just three – with passengers encouraged to switch to those that remain.

That may be intensely annoying for those who wanted to fly at 8am and instead are invited to travel at 2pm, but is another reflection of the brutal effect of Covid-19 on what used to be part of the industry of human happiness.

Tuscany is a joy, particularly the city of Lucca (iStock)

Q I was going to a wedding in Italy at the weekend that was cancelled, flying out on 4 July and returning 10 July. Both flights are operating. The airline says that despite the Foreign Office advice not lifting until 6 July, we are due no refund. The only option is to rebook.

I have a hotel in Pisa booked on a non-refundable rate – they say the same. I also have travel insurance but they say in order to claim we need to prove no alternative was offered and they class an offer to rebook as an alternative. Just wondered if there’s anything else we can do?

Name supplied

A Sorry to hear that the wedding was cancelled. You did the right thing to book well in advance for what is normally a very busy time, but events have conspired against you.

You will not thank me for saying that your financial position would be very different had you booked a package holiday. Wrapping the flights and hotel into a single transaction – which a travel agent (human or online, eg Expedia) could have done – means you would be due a full cash refund if the Foreign Office advises against travel.

Regrettably, the legal situation for straightforward air fares is different. If the flight goes ahead, then the airline is perfectly entitled to say: “Your seat was there, the fact that you didn’t want to be on board is your problem, not ours.”

That sounds harsh, and while I understand your frustration – that the airline can hang on to your fare even if the UK government says you shouldn’t go – it is actually being more generous than it needs to be by offering the chance to rebook without penalty.

Travel insurers are generally regarding a rebook or voucher option as satisfying the contract, which is unsatisfactory to many customers, including you. Unless the hotel is also offering the chance to postpone, you should be able to claim for the accommodation component, though I imagine the insurance excess could make a dent in your refund.

The option I would choose is: go ahead with your trip. This corner of Tuscany is a joy, particularly the city of Lucca (northeast of Pisa) and the resorts to the northwest. You might choose to visit Florence, experiencing the city with hardly any tourists. By travelling against the advice of the Foreign Office, you would render your travel insurance void. But your European Health Insurance Card will cover medical bills, and the chances of contracting the coronavirus are much lower in Italy than they are in the UK.

A Seattle trip will probably be off the cards for months (Getty/iStock)

Q We have tickets booked to go to Seattle for two weeks in September with Virgin Atlantic. The lodge we planned to stay in is closed over the summer due to Covid.

We have therefore cancelled all our other ground arrangements. If you were us would you wait to see if the flight is cancelled, or should we reschedule it for 2021 or 2022, which will probably involve a price increase?

Mark J

A Virgin Atlantic has arguably suffered more than any other UK airline during the coronavirus pandemic. As the airline name suggests, transatlantic flying comprises most of the normal business of Sir Richard Branson’s long-haul carrier – and a large proportion of that is to and from the US. It has closed its Gatwick base and is concentrating on Heathrow, with some operations planned from Manchester.

Covid-19 cases in the US are increasing rapidly, especially in Florida – a Virgin Atlantic heartland. American visitors to the UK and the rest of Europe will face quarantine for some time to come.

In the opposite direction Donald Trump is maintaining (against all statistical evidence) a coronavirus blockade against Europeans, because he believes it will play well with his electoral support base ahead of November’s election. And so it looks to me as though routine UK-US flights will be off the agenda for some months.

Even if restrictions are lifted by September, I predict that Virgin Atlantic will stick to core, well-established routes such as New York, Boston, Washington DC, Miami, Orlando, Los Angeles and San Francisco.

Seattle, which is a relatively new destination for Virgin Atlantic, is exactly the sort of route I can see being shelved rather than flown at a loss; after all, Virgin’s partner (and 49 per cent owner), Delta Air Lines, can offer a wide range of connections to Seattle from other US hubs. Therefore I expect the flight will be cancelled, at which point you can ask for a full cash refund.

If I am wrong and the flight goes ahead, I believe it would be at a time of continued restrictions. While Virgin Atlantic would be entitled to apply its terms and conditions – ie if you no-show, you lose your fare – I am sure it will offer you the chance to reschedule.

Paris is much emptier than usual (THO)

Q My daughter and her boyfriend are supposed to go to Paris on 26 July. Due to the current climate, they are upset that they have now been asked to pay the final bill. If they cancel then they will lose their money. As two 18-year-olds just going to university, they really can’t afford to lose the money. But they are worried about going too. Are they going to be forced to either go or lose their money?

Ian L

A Like your daughter and her boyfriend, many prospective travellers have found themselves in unenviable, expensive and stressful situations since the coronavirus crisis developed. They are left with expensive holiday purchases that they no longer feel they want.

I sympathise with how they are feeling: they committed to something that seemed appealing and achievable, and now it seems to be neither because of the extraordinary turn in events that this wretched virus has brought about.

As they are evidently anxious about going to Paris, they should first try talking to the travel company they booked with. Unless their flight gets cancelled (which, if it has not been so far, looks an unlikely possibility to me), I cannot see any possibility of a refund. But there’s an outside chance that they may be able to negotiate a postponement.

However, were my daughter and her boyfriend in the same quandary I would urge them to go. Certainly, the interactions involved in a journey to the French capital are not risk-free but, to balance that, the chances of contracting the coronavirus are significantly lower in France than they are in the UK.

Paris at the height of summer can be a blissful place for young travellers, especially as they have endured months of lockdown. They would see the city in unusual circumstances, with the streets and tourist areas much emptier than they normally are. I predict, if they go, that the experience will be one they will talk about for years.

Indeed, I might just suggest to my daughter that she plans a summer trip to Paris.

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