WillTravel

Air Canada might go under soon.
Apparently Alitalia might go under in the next month, according to reports in the Italian media (as reported on the Europe forum here).
What happens to those of us who have tickets on a bankrupt airline?
In my case, I have Air Canada tickets YVR-LHR purchased on the FlyBMI.com site.

WillTravel

I was just checking the FlyBMI.com web site and found this, which makes me feel a little better:
http://www.flybmi.com/bmi/en-gb/sect...ils.aspx?p=138

codeshare flights
When a flight is sold to you under a codeshare or marketing arrangement by us, we will always inform you of the actual operator of the flight. On occasions, the services offered may be different to that provided by bmi as not all airlines will be signatory to the APSC. However, as the marketing carrier, your contract for travel remains with us should you have any further issues.

rkkwan

WillTravel - Let's talk about you first. I went to flybmi.com and find that the AC flights you're on should have a "BD" flight number on it, and your transaction should be between you and bmi. Therefore, in your case, bmi is responsible to get you from Vancouver to London. If AC shuts down, then they probably will try to put you on United flights via Chicago or elsewhere.

For other people with tickets on AC or AZ, I think the best and first thing they should do if they're worried is to get printed tickets issued for themselves. This often means extra fees, but they may be worth it. In many cases, you'll find some competitors honor the tickets for you when they have open seats, and they will try to recover the fares from the bankruptcy courts. Think about it this way, the competitor has little to lose. If they have empty seats on their planes, honoring your ticket costs them next to nothing, but instead they earn goodwill, and even if they can just get back a fraction of the ticket cost, they are still better off.

And definitely pay for your ticket with credit cards. If the company shuts down, you can often get reimbursed by the credit card company with few questions asked.

The people who has the most to lose are those who've paid the tickets with check/cash, and those holding a lot of frequent flier miles. The FF miles probably will become nothing.

So, again, if you are worried, have paper tickets issued to you. That way, in case the airline shutdown (and their phone centers overwhelmed or shutdown), you can probably still get a competitor airline to get you where you need to go.

WillTravel

Lucky me. BMI insisted on paper tickets, which I thought was silly for nonstop flights, but Air Canada and BMI apparently did not have an e-ticket arrangement. So I do have paper tickets.

rkkwan, if AC fails sometime by then, presumably BMI might put me on a different route from YVR-LHR, also, right?

These tickets are for July 11/25.

WillTravel

Sorry, July 9/25.

rkkwan

WillTravel - I believe the only trans-Atlantic flights operated by bmi itself are daily Chicago-Manchester, daily Washington-Manchester, and Toronto-Manchester 3 times a week increasing to 6 in May.

bmi is a member of the Star Alliance, and partners with AC and UA in North America. Therefore, IN CASE AC does shut down, they'll most likely put you on UA to Heathrow, or on their own flights connecting through Manchester, or probably put you on one of the charter airlines that fly between Canada and the UK.

JJ625

Here's an informative site that will help answer some questions for those who have purchased tickets on airlines under bankruptcy protection.

http://hasbrouck.org/articles/bankruptcy.html

WillTravel

Thanks JJ625.
Just to clarify, this article focuses on US airlines and US bankruptcy law, which might or might not apply to Air Canada or European airlines.