Oops: British Airways’ Accidental Flight Cancelation Emails

By: Ben Schlappig

Published: August 24, 2019

36 comments

Yesterday British Airways pilots announced that they’re going on strike September 9, September 10, and September 27, 2019. This follows a contract dispute between pilots and management that has been going on for quite a while.

It’s still possible that this strike will be called off, though as of now British Airways is planning on it happening, and they’re adjusting their schedule accordingly. As part of this they’re trimming their schedule on the above dates. On top of that:

British Airways is exploring wet lease opportunities, where they could possibly have other carriers operate flights on their behalf over the strike dates
They’re working with partner airlines to increase capacity to & from London over the strike dates

But as of now we can expect that a lot of flights will be canceled on the above dates. It’s also possible that we’ll see cancelations on the day immediately following any of these strikes. For example, if a flight from London to somewhere is scheduled to depart on the strike date, the return flight the following day could be impacted as well.

However, it appears that British Airways may not be doing an amazing job communicating with customers here.

There are lots of reports of British Airways sending out incorrect flight cancelation notices. So while lots of flights will be canceled, others are receiving cancelation emails even though their flights haven’t actually been canceled.

C’mon British Airways, you had one job (okay, they have multiple jobs, but you get the point). 😉

So how can you tell if your flight is actually canceled, or if it was a mistake? Go to the “Manage My Booking” section of British Airways’ website:

If your flight was actually canceled, you’ll see this clearly reflected in the online itinerary, with struck-through text over the flight details
If your flight wasn’t actually canceled, you’ll see that the flights appear as usual

So while I’m sure the disruptions from this strike will be bad, they might not be quite as bad as you’d expect based on the number of emails that have been sent out.

Hopefully this saves some of you a lot of headache. On a good day British Airways’ call center hold times are outrageous, so I can only imagine what they’re like now…

Did anyone receive one of these erroneous flight cancelation emails?

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SK Guest

September 1, 2019, 9:54 pm

I am shocked that BA would cancel flights like this, I previously had this impression it was a premier airline, and that impression is totally gone. They cancelled my Sep 10 flights, like it was "no big deal ... we will refund your money" ignoring someone's time off scheduled, hotels, childcare, all the costs associated with one travelling on a holiday. Shocking. I will endeavour to avoid BA as much as possible in the future. BA - you suck big time. Pay your pilots properly and care about your customers before you have none left. I hope your negotiation bites into your bottom line nicely.

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Helen Guest

August 26, 2019, 3:24 pm

Flying LHR to SYD on 9 Sep. Got the cancellation email Friday evening, then got the not cancelled email 24 hours later. Website always shows it's cancelled. Today (26th) I got the 'please contact us ASAP' email. Well I would if they'd either answer the phone or not hang up on me.Sometimes the voice tells me to re-book online, except it won't let me. And very manipulative to not send the original mail until last thing Friday evening on a long weekend. I think it's back-fired on them-more people are annoyed with BA than they are with the pilots.

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John Guest

August 26, 2019, 11:54 am

I called the Gold Desk and waited for over an hour and got disconnected. Tried again and another hour was disconnected. Last try got through after 70 minutes on hold. The agent was very apologetic and basically said it was a mistake. Would you have thought it was easier to send a blast email that a mistake was made and the individuals would be notified. Lots of trouble for a blunder that could have been avoided.

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Robin Guest

August 26, 2019, 8:47 am

If you book BA flights through a travel agent , you can get straight through to your agent and they can rebook, reissue, process refunds etc on behalf of BA. AMAZINGLY HOWEVER.... BA refuse to accept phone calls from agents except via a premium cost number AND they priorise their normal customer number ...so the premium number answers with a all-our-agents are busy message "please try again later" . Absolute madness considering that in one short B to B call the agent takes a lot of work off the airline ....

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John in Jozi Guest

August 26, 2019, 6:17 am

BA is just awful in every way. Luckily, I didn't re-book or refundmy flight before they "uncanceled" it - but only because I couldn't get through to them - the call centers would just hang up on me. And this as a Executive Club Gold member. Really a shambolic excuse for an airline. Still waiting for an apology.

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