I have a flight on Brittish Airways at the end of the month. (SFO to London). With all of the cancellations on airlines happening, I must admit I am pretty worried. I've booked my tickets directly thru Brittish Airways. If my flight is cancelled what happens? Do they put you on the next flight out? Should I buy trip insurance? Thanks in advance for the advice.

They put you on the next flight on which there are seats - not always the next flight. You have option of flying standby for a minimal fee at another airline on your original ticket.

If you get to airport and find there is a problem, in addition to standing in the annoying line with everyone else in your situation, call BA on your cell phone and/or try to get thru to customer service on a computer - often more efficient. Or if possible, have someone at home do it for you.

Trip insurance is possible, but it won't get you there - it will pay you for whatever is nonrefundable because of delay. Some include cash just because there is a cancellation. insuremytrip.com is a good website clearinghouse for what is what on varioius policies.

Keep an eye on your flight, particularly starting about two days before departure.

Once I had a flight cancelled, but was able to get an earlier flight about six hours before. Air Canada notified me at the last possible moment, but fortunately I was already packed so could just run to the airport.

If the next flight isn't available or if it leaves to late, ask if you can be re-routed. My good friend Swisshiker was caught in the cancellations this week as she was flying to Paris. Her route was AUS/DFW/CDG. The AUS/DFW segment was cancelled so on the recommendation of our other poster OO, Swisshiker called the airline and was re-routed to Dallas Love Field. From there she got a ride to DFW airport and made her flight to CDG. This was a hassle but at least she wasn't delayed.

Getting back to the point, ask if they can change your routing if necessary. It might mean an airport change or an extra stop but it's better than missing a day of your trip.

It also depends on why he flight was canceled. If it can be attributed to something out of the airline's control such as weather you have less leverage - and they all try desperately to attribute it to such a cause. IF they can't blame it on something out of their control and you have to say overnight the usually provide hotel and meal vouchers.
Most airlines will do their best to accommodate you as soon as possible, but during the process it help if you calmly ask about other options. Usually they will try to put you on one of their own flights so they get to keep the revenue but in many cases you can ask to be routed to another carrier They do what is called "endorsing the ticket" to the new carrier, which means the new carrier gets your money (this usually does not apply with FF reward tickets.)

BTW, you are in good shape having bought your tickets directly from the airline. And though there are aberrations (like the current AA mass service interruption for safety reasons) and delays, outright cancellation is not that common.

Gail- I have never heard of having to pay a fee for standby on the original or another carrier in this situation. Did that happen to you?

Yes - when flight on one airline was cancelled due to weather in connecting city and the alternative original airline offered was over 24 hours later, I walked over to airline #2 and they let me fly standby on original ticket for a "standby fee"

Since it was weather, it was not considered to be airline's fault - and it was standby since many passengers with connections north were in same situation.

Was the standby fee on BA? It doesn't sound like a BA thing, it sounds like a US carrier/domestic US.

BA will put you on the next available BA flight, if there isn't one, they will put you on another airline's flight. Going on another airline's fllight can only be done if the ticket is endorsed over to that airline. The eticket is printed out and stamped by the airline.

It would be quite unlikely for it to be cancelled. Having contact details in the reservation helps, although they don't always call, they do send emails with schedule changes.

This may be tempting fate. BUT:

BA haven't cancelled a flight since April 7 - and that was because of snow, which is almost unheard of here at the beginning of April, and practically impossible at the end.

The cancellations were because BA and/or the airport couldn't get the baggage handling machines to cope with the number of bags. For about five successive days now, they've managed to get the system to work.

You're probably lucky, because they were due to put another few hundred flights a day into T5 system at the end of the month. Who knows whether the handling system would have coped? Since the answer is probably "no-one", you might have hit cancellations when the thing blew up again.

But they've now delayed the move of those extra flights - so when you're flying, the system will be handling the volume they'll have had a few weeks to pass through reasonably smoothly.

This is not to say something else won't crop up. But right now (touch wood) cancellations seem less likely than a lot of other travelling irritations.

Thanks so much for the great replies. I am going to print this post out and take it with me to the airport. Here's hopeing there's no problems.Flanneruk, they have scheduled my flight into terminal 5. Knowing it's supposed to be new, I sure hope they get their baggage situation worked out soon.

When I'm travelling with a "vulnerable itinerary" (e.g. due to weather problems, threats of strikes, problems with aircraft etc), I make sure I travel with a set of key phone numbers that work locally en route (i.e. 1-800 numbers don't work in Europe) as well as useful information, as follows:

1) Airline contact numbers (toll-free numbers in the countries where you'll be transiting or landing, as well as local numbers)

2) Schedules with your airline for the route you're travelling (e.g. helpful to know that there is a 10:00 am flight if you miss your 9 am flight, and that there is an 11 am flight to city x, only 100 miles away from your destination).

3) Schedules for a few other airlines that fly the same route.

4) 3-4 airport hotel telephone numbers for hotels in your price range. (Have these for all airports you fly through, including your originating airport.)

5) Telephone contact number for the hotel at your final destination, so you can call if you're delayed.