Middle East Airspace Diversions/Cancellations

[MEL_Traveller]

Goodness, you have been very fortunate indeed with your current experience of only waiting an hour to get through to Qatar, I assume you are a premium tier member. Certainly in Spain yesterday there was no response despite the several hours I tried to get through on chat and stories posted on Flyertalk of one poor soul being on phone hold for 17 hours. Others trying different phone numbers and language options in attempts to get through. GIven the increasing tranches of flights Qatar are having to cancel I think they are now just totally overwhelmed over here in Europe but maybe things are different for contacting them locally back in oz at the moment

I read that too! I don’t understand how anyone was on hold for 17 hours? But I agree… no one is saying this is ‘easy’ and doesn’t require anything short of a marathon effort!

 

[RooFlyer]

I don’t understand how anyone was on hold for 17 hours?

Remember the Covid phone queue stories?

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Remember the Covid phone queue stories?

Exactly!

But I’m not sure if the 17 hours was a single hold, or multiple holds of less than an hour each, or what.

I mean you’d have to think, at some time in that 17 hours, that you might not actually be in the right queue?

 

[jase05]

I mean you’d have to think, at some time in that 17 hours, that you might not actually be in the right queue?

Definitely in the far queue

 

[Seat0B]

. I am contemplating trying to find some oldschool voip service or something,

After having a similar experience stuck in Japan at the onset of COVID, we were very glad to reactivate an old school VOIP account with CrazyTel. I think that is a good option for you.

 

[serfty]

Question - does this (EU261) apply if it’s MEL to DOH to FRA? Or only the other way around?

ONLY ex FRA (or EU/UK in general) as you are not booked on an EU/UK based carrier.

 

[kamchatsky]

CX has additional flights from HKG to LHR:


They must be making so much money on Europe flights right now. One of the quotes of the article below is:

"Operators of the Instagram account @dmarge just posted a screenshot of a business class fare (with one leg in first class) from Sydney to London on Cathay Pacific for almost $40,000."

$11k for an economy flight to London? Why airlines are not your friends

Airlines always like to pretend to be your friend. Until they sniff a little desperation and then they absolutely fleece you for all you’re worth.

www.smh.com.au

 

[MEL_Traveller]

They must be making so much money on Europe flights right now. One of the quotes of the article below is:

"Operators of the Instagram account @dmarge just posted a screenshot of a business class fare (with one leg in first class) from Sydney to London on Cathay Pacific for almost $40,000."

$11k for an economy flight to London? Why airlines are not your friends

Airlines always like to pretend to be your friend. Until they sniff a little desperation and then they absolutely fleece you for all you’re worth.

www.smh.com.au

You can find any fare you want to support a spurious argument.

I mentioned above that yes, same day walk up fares ex Europe to Australia can be expensive… AUD3000-4000. But wait just one day and the same fare is only $1940. Or wait two days and extend your travel time from 24 hours to 36 hours and you can get home for under $1000… avoiding gulf carriers.

Click bait.

And many of the people on those flights won’t be paying those fares at all… other airlines re-routing pax will be picking up the bill.

 

[Rembrandt]

And many of the people on those flights won’t be paying those fares at all… other airlines re-routing pax will be picking up the bill.

Are the ME3 actually re-routing pax? I thought they were just cancelling flights for people not stranded in the gulf.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Are the ME3 actually re-routing pax? I thought they were just cancelling flights for people not stranded in the gulf?

Yes.

A lot of the discussion over the last few pages has been around the ME3 rerouting. EK has actually resumed (limited) commercial operations.

QR is rerouting either under the JWC policy or EU/UK261.

EY I haven’t done any research into.

 

[elanshin]

Are the ME3 actually re-routing pax? I thought they were just cancelling flights for people not stranded in the gulf.

Yes, but keep in mind you're talking about hundreds of thousands of people PER day that needs to be rerouted. This number compounds into a bigger and bigger number with each passing day.

There frankly is not enough capacity with every other airline combined to handle the rerouting. This is why we're seeing a lot of must fly people taking the long way around to Asia from Europe.

F1 for example, a lot of their crews flew 40-50 hours to get to Melbourne.

 

[Rembrandt]

Ok thanks for the clarification. What about reward seats are they re-routed or just generally cancelled?

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Ok thanks for the clarification. What about reward seats are they re-routed or just generally cancelled?

Rewards seats are being treated the same as revenue.

VA however - from what I can read - is simply offering a refund or change to a later date. No re-routing.

With EK’s limited resumption of commercial flights you may be stuck with a flight via the gulf rather than a reroute. I dunno what happens in that scenario if there’s still a ‘do not travel’ in place.

 

[Rembrandt]

VA hiwever - from what I can read - is simply offering a refund or change to a later date. No re-routing.

Thanks for confirming. Grrr..I have a VA reward seat flying with QR. My flights are not until April 19th and as other have said travel will be the least of our troubles if the gulf is still closed then..

 

[kamchatsky]

You can find any fare you want to support a spurious argument.

I mentioned above that yes, same day walk up fares ex Europe to Australia can be expensive… AUD3000-4000. But wait just one day and the same fare is only $1940. Or wait two days and extend your travel time from 24 hours to 36 hours and you can get home for under $1000… avoiding gulf carriers.

Click bait.

And many of the people on those flights won’t be paying those fares at all… other airlines re-routing pax will be picking up the bill.

From Europe/UK, they would do free re-route, but not from anywhere else though.

 

[FlyingKangaroo]

We are meant to fly to Paris end of month and back mid-April, revenue tickets in Y on VA operated by QR, and had successfully upgraded the DOH-SYD sector with points (will be a big pity to lose that mais c'est la vie).

With QR operating only a tiny handful of flights over the next few days and no plan in sight to resume even limited normal operations, we've been looking at alternatives this week but absolutely nothing makes sense or is worth the $4500+ per pax in Y just to meander around France and Switzerland for a few weeks, even factoring in one hotel stay that's not refundable.

Emirates is offering fee-free refunds for flights through the end of month and after combing through recent flight status history of each of the sectors, decided to book SYD-DXB-CDG-DXB-SYD with minimal layovers in DXB on a combination of flights that have all been operating daily over the last week. It's not a guarantee to get there, but the trip isn't worth spending more on, so if both QR and EK don't pan out, it was not meant to be.

In which case, we're also booking a refundable trip to Fiji as Plan C and will settle for coughtail commiseration as far away from Europe as possible.

Hooray for putting excess flights on the credit card whose statement period just started over.

 

[FlyingKangaroo]

Etihad appears to be looking ahead already at how they can try to convince people to book with them with more confidence once this is (hopefully soon) over...

 

[MEL_Traveller]

From Europe/UK, they would do free re-route, but not from anywhere else though.

Plenty of traffic on other forums confirming EK is doing the same for pax ex USA as well.

So maybe as far as EK is concerned it’s more extensive.

 

[FlyingKangaroo]

Intended Emirates schedule through March 28: Emirates Maintains Reduced Operation 15-28MAR26 — AeroRoutes.

For ex-Australia, this means, compared to normal:
SYD: reduced 3x --> 1x daily (CHC tag continues)
MEL: reduced 3x --> 1x daily
PER: 1x daily maintained
BNE: 2x --> 0, suspended until March 30, no souk for you

Over in NZ, DXB-AKL and SYD-CHC 1x daily maintained (link doesn't show CHC but confirmed via OAG; SYD-CHC has been operating throughout even on its lonesome anyway).

Full schedule tentatively to resume from March 29.

 

[elanshin]

I don't think we're going to see an "end" anytime soon.

More drone attacks on Dubai overnight. This is not "normal" as much as the Emirati are trying to downplay it for UAE and the rest of the region.

Ukraine is being asked for anti-drone help and technical abilities, should also say everything we need to to read between the lines about the situation.