[Floodster]

We were booked on an Air Berlin flight to Nuremburg from Stanstead last week. We drove down the night before as we had a flight time of 7:00am. We checked into a hotel & paid £17 for the car in the long stay car park.

When we arrived at the airport we couldn't see our flight number on the departure board. We went to the Air Berlin desk & they told us "we stopped flying to Nuremberg from here in February!!!!". When they checked their system they confirmed that they had not sent us any form on notification of these changes.

We had to be transferred onto the 20:00pm flight from Gatwick which lost us a day of our trip.

How can they do this? Are we entitled to any compensation? Who do we complain to?

Thanks.

J.

[A320FAN]

Originally Posted by Floodster

We were booked on an Air Berlin flight to Nuremburg from Stanstead last week. We drove down the night before as we had a flight time of 7:00am. We checked into a hotel & paid £17 for the car in the long stay car park.

When we arrived at the airport we couldn't see our flight number on the departure board. We went to the Air Berlin desk & they told us "we stopped flying to Nuremberg from here in February!!!!". When they checked their system they confirmed that they had not sent us any form on notification of these changes.

We had to be transferred onto the 20:00pm flight from Gatwick which lost us a day of our trip.

How can they do this? Are we entitled to any compensation? Who do we complain to?

Thanks.

J.

Airlines change their schedules as much as people change their underwear. Many times cities are not performing to what an airline would like so the destination is dropped and all service is discontinued. How did you book your Air Berlin flightd? If you used an online or brick and mortar travel agency, the airline has no way of contacting you. I have seen this so many times with my airline. Many times when arranging an alternate form of transportation the airline will try to keep you on their flights 1st, now if no other viaable way of getting to your destination, then they may book you on an alternative airline which they set up an agreement. Now as far as compensation did you contact Air Berlin, and ask them about what they were doing to re-protect you. Also did you do your homework, and contact Air Berlin prior to your departure from NUE to LGW? If not you need to shoulder a part of the blame for not following up with the Air Berlin.

[Floodster]

We booked online & email addresses were provided. Everyone else who booked with them got an email to tell them of the change. We were the only ones who didn't get an email.
We checked the airline to see if there were any delays, not flight changes.
Surely its the airlines responsibility to contact us especially when they move flights to a different airport?

[Christiana]

The same thing happened to me! I booked a flight from Stansted to Hanover and when I arrived at the airport was told that the flights had been going from Gatwick since February! The lady at the counter even admitted that the website had not been changed and that this had confused people. Unfortunately my receipt said 'Gatwick' but I must have developed a blind spot as I had chosen stansted from the dropdown box. Also a page in my history cache from March, when I booked the flight, clearly shows that the page with the search results was headlined 'London Stansted >> Hanover". All the individual flights however where prefixed 'LGW - HAJ'. This is very bad web design and clearly mislabelling. Would this mislabelling fall under the Consumer Protection from Unfair Traiding Regulation? Also when I tried to book in online the day before, the airberlin website was down. Another chance missed to notice my mistake.
I suppose as I didn't check my receipt there is no way of a refund? Is it just unethical behaviour and bad customer care?