Last April, I spent a week on Vancouver Island, BC, Canada, visiting all the botanical gardens. For the return flight, I had booked a red-eye that was scheduled to depart at 11 pm. This way, I would have had another day to spend with my friends, visiting more gardens. I also had booked an appointment at a hairdresser for the morning.
Late evening before the departure day, I browsed through emails when I saw one from the airline: "Booking Confirmation". I almost skipped it, as I had already received one a day earlier. But when I was about to delete it, within a second, my blood pressure went up. It said 8:30 am ...
What??? I had booked this flight weeks ago, and yesterday the confirmation assured me that the departure time would be 11 pm. I phoned their customer service right away, holding my breath, while listening to their annoying music, interrupted by announcements praising their customer service. Finally, after almost half an hour, someone answered my call.
I told her my flight number and the text of the different flight confirmations, and that I insisted on correcting the incorrect time. She listened patiently to me and then explained that the late evening flight had been canceled.
But why was I then booked to an EARLIER flight that meant a whole vacation day lost?
And all that without asking me? I was mad as hell, as I could not even book for a day later.
It seems this practice is not unusual:
Today I read an article on Medium.com: "Since when does an airline change your itinerary without asking?" AI is deciding if you can’t make a flight connection and proactively rebooking you. It happened to passengers recently. That was not my case, as I had booked a direct flight.
Airlines say they launched their automated rebooking technology in 2023. It happened to Washington Post columnist Marc Thiessen when American Airlines changed his flight schedule. “Since when do you change my itinerary without asking?” he wrote in an indignant post on X to American Airlines.
It raises an interesting question: Is this too much AI?
Does anyone owe you anything for being rescheduled?
Not really. Federal rules on bumping, 14 CFR Part 250, cover passengers with confirmed reservations who are denied boarding from an oversold flight. When they apply, the money is real. An airline owes at least 200 percent of your fare, capped at $1,075, “if you get to your destination one or two hours late, and 400 percent, capped at $2,150, beyond that.
It owes nothing if it reroutes you to arrive within an hour of your original time. Pretty much the same in Canada.
Read the whole Medium article here: https://elliottdotorg.medium.com/since-when-does-an-airline-change-your-itinerary-without-asking-9f95f2983fd3
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