Simon Calder's Holiday Helpdesk: We had to fly back with a different airline to the one we originally booked
Every day our travel guru answers your travel questions
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.Q. We have just flown back from Spain on an airline I have never heard of, with cabin crew who spoke little English and on a tatty plane. The airline we had originally booked with say they had to charter a new flight and has refused to pay compensation.
Gail Parsons
A. “Ad-hoc charters” like this are nothing unusual. If an airline runs short of planes, perhaps because one of the fleet is out of service, the carrier can choose to buy in extra capacity from other firms that have spare capacity in order to patch the holes in its schedules. The standard contract is for “wet-leasing,” whereby the other airline supplies the plane, the pilots and the cabin crew.
Sometimes wet-leasing can take place on a large scale: in 2010, easyJet chartered in some 757s to reduce the widespread cancellations and delays. Some BA passengers found themselves aboard Ryanair planes during the cabin-crew dispute. And last summer Monarch expanded its schedules rapidly to take up some routes abandoned by Bmibaby, and brought in capacity from Aurela of Lithuania and AirExplore of Slovakia.
What are your rights when this happens? Zero. Your contract with the airline allows it to substitute another aircraft. Some passengers have concerns about comfort, and others about safety, but you have no right to cancel. On the point about safety: any airline flying to and from the UK must satisfy European aviation regulations.
Click HERE to email Simon.
You can also tweet him your questions @SimonCalder
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments