This happened 2 years ago to our party. We were told it is not a significant change because we don't leave the aircraft.It was a nightmare but we were powerless.

This happened to me a few year back when we left Zante in Greece. We only found out about the "slight detour" once the aircraft was airbourne and at cruising altitude when we were advised over the Intercom by the Captain that as it was not possible to take on board the required amount of avaiation fuel at Zabte, we would be stopping off at Paris Charles De Gaulle (spelling?) to refuel and then continue on to Garwick. This added another two and a half hours onto our total travel time as we had to wait for a departure slot in Paris, and we were not allowed to disembark, and at Paris there seemed to be some problem with who was going to pay for the extra fuel and how. Yes, I kid you not, this actually happened.

PS: Nothing was mentioned in the brochure, or by the Travel Agent that the return flight would involve a refuelling stop. Thankfully we were metr at Gatwick by family so our onward travel plans were not interupted too much, but I hate to think what would have happened if we were due to catch say a domestic flight back to another part of the UK.

The expert on this Mike Cunliffe is away on holiday. I seem to recall this question has come up before.

I suggest you spend a little time going back through the archive. I think you will find the answer there.

fwh

They do not consider this a major change as the airline is gettting you from your departure point to your arrival point as contracted ( albeit taking a couple of hours longer ).

It is a pain I know but I dont think you will be able to tak any action or cancel free of charge because of this.

Kind Regards
Stewart

Hi, Balkan do this every year, At the moment some Manchester flights are dropping into Southampton. Liverpool flights into Exeter, some Gatwick flights have been going to Glasgow, It is a sales gimmick on Balkans behalf, put all these Airports in Brochure and then juggle around nearer the time. I maybe wrong but I doubt if they have enough planes to do all the runs. Last year I went Gatwick to Cardiff then Varna. Cheers Tonyt

Hi I have searched loads of old posts but cannot find one from Mike Cunliffe on this subject. Any advice on how to do this please

If you got to the Search facility at the top of the page, put Mike Cunliffe in as the author and select Posts instead of Topics, you should be able to find it.

luci

Thanks will give it ago

I have PMd Mike and asked him to have a look. He got back from holiday a couple of days ago.

fwh

In the meantime, you may wish to read through the following topic:

http://www.holidaytruths.co.uk/viewtopic.php?p=746436

Mark

Wow, I'm honoured to think my input is considered valuable.

I think Stewart's answered this one - all I can add is the the phrase "Warsaw Convention". This edict demands that an airline transports you from point A to point B (and back in the case of a return). It permits the airline to use a variety of transport methods and doesn't demand the entire journey should be by air.

I believe that getting you to the destination or return point within a couple of hours of the expected arrival time is acceptable. Buried in the detail of EC261/2004 is a reference to flights arriving later than 2 or 3 hours after the scheduled arrival time (depends upon distance being travelled) meriting some form of compensation but this probably will not apply here - and anyway, you could only lodge such a complaint after the flight when perhaps it's determined that arrival time was much later than anticipated.

Based on what I've read here I'll strike Balkan off my acceptable list as well - thanks for the info. Tonyt.

Mike