The dumbest handling of a schedule change I’ve ever seen

I’ve been traveling for quite a few years now so I’m reaching a point where there aren’t many things that a major airline can do that will catch me completely by surprise or that will confuse me to a point where I simply cannot understand the reasoning for a decision.

Every now and again, however, I get reminded that airlines can still make seemingly inexplicable decisions and act in seemingly ridiculous ways, and I thought that I’d share one such example that I’m living though right now.

The set up

Last year, I booked a British Airways flight between London Heathrow and a destination in the Mediterranean for a short break this summer.

At the time of booking, there were three departures for me to choose from. 07:55, 11:45 and 19:10 all with a flight time of around 4 hours.

I booked the 07:55 because that was the only flight that would get me to my destination in time for what I had planned.

The schedule change

Many months after I booked, British Airways decided that it needed to add another flight to the same destination and it decided that it need that flight to depart Heathrow between the flights at 07:55 and the 11:45. Logicaly therefore, it added a flight departing Heathrow at 09:50.

Nothing strange, unusual or dumb so far … except for the fact that this isn’t exactly how British Airways actually handled the change to its schedule.

What British Airways did

Instead of simply inserting a new flight into the schedules with a 09:50 departure time, this is what BA actually did:

• It moved the departure time of the 07:55 flight to 09:50
• It then created a new flight with a 07:20 departure time.

What this meant is that everyone who had chosen to fly at 07:55 was now booked on a flight scheduled to depart almost two hours later, and British Airways had a new and completely empty flight that was departing within 25 minutes of when the 07:55 had been due to leave.

Erm … what?!

This makes no sense at all.

Why would someone at British Airways decide that everyone who had originally booked to fly at 07:55 would be happy departing almost two hours later but not 35 minutes earlier?

This can’t have anything to do with people connecting at Heathrow because (a) it’s highly unlikely anyone was connecting to the 07:55 from an earlier flight (it’s too early) and (b) even if such a passenger existed, they could have been moved to the newly created 09:50 flight without also moving everyone else to the 09:50 as well.

In fact, not only is it highly unlikely that BA’s decision to move the 07:55 to 09:50 has helped out anyone connecting at Heathrow, it’s very possible that it has caused issues for some passengers for whom the original timings were important.

What happens to people who are connecting on after their BA flight? There’s every chance that a 2-hour flight delay will put that connection in jeopardy … or make it an impossible one to make.

That’s not the position I’m in (fortunately), but it screws up the plans I have for the day of arrival and, as a result, the next day as well.

BA adds insult to injury

So, at this point I imagine that some of you are thinking “what’s the big deal? If this is an issue, just get British Airways to move you to the earlier flight. How hard can that be?“.

I’ve thought of that, and so has BA.

Because British Airways has only moved the departure time by 1 hour and 55 minutes and not 2 hours (07:55 -> 09:50), it is saying that any passenger who wants to move from the 09:50 to the newly created (and completely empty) 07:20 has to pay a change fee as well as any difference in fare.

Is anyone else now starting to think that the choice of 09:50 as the new departure time was more carefully chosen than it may have seemed at first?

Unsurprisingly, because I booked my trip some time ago, because we’re now a lot closer to the departure date and because we’re now in the middle of a war which is causing the price of aviation fuel to spike, the fare difference I’m being quoted is big. Very big.

It’s so big that I’m not prepared to pay it, so I’m going to have to put up with the inconvenience and settle for being monumentally annoyed at BA (and vent on here).

My annoyance aside however, what was the person who made these schedule alterations thinking about? At what point did any of this make sense and seem like the best way forward?

If anyone can come up with a non-ridiculous reason why this isn’t a stunningly dumb way to handle a schedule change, please let me know in the comments because as things stand, this has to be the dumbest way for an airline to handle a schedule change that I’ve ever encountered.