tourart

Spanair cancelled our ticketed flight Madrid to Grenada. No alternative. We are connecting in Madrid off a frequent flyer ticket (no changes, of course). Has anyone else had this experience? Did anyone at Spanair help you find another way to reach your destination? The rest of our itinerary is pretty set (hotel and Alhambra reservations). Instead of a flight leaving Madrid at 550PM arriving at 655, the only option seems to be the train departing Atocha at 710 PM arriving at 11:30PM that night. What a long day! I don't even know if SpanAir will refund our non-refundable, but now non-useable tickets!

greg

Since you did not post the day or the time of the arrival at MAD, I can only give an example.

For 4/13, for example, Iberia (www.iberia.es) has five flights to Granda

8:10, 11:50, 16:10, 18:35, 21:45

about €78 for a one-way ticket.

NEDSIRELAND

Let me begin by saying 11:30PM is not a late hour by Spain standards. If it comes down to that, call your Hotel in Granada before 3:00PM and tell them you will be a late arrival.

It shouldn't come down to that, though. If you had a confirmed reservation on a Madrid-Granada flight (i.e., not Standby) SpanAir should put you on an Iberia or Air Europa flight. Their responsibility when they cancel a scheduled flight is to accomodate everyone holding space on that flight. Talk to them!

Get 'Ugly' if that becomes necessary!

CarolA

And getting ugly probably isn't going to work

As I understand the EU rules all you are really entitled to is a refund. One of the risks of the numerous "discount" airlines that have sprung up over the years is that they do NOT have any "interline" agreements. In other words they can't write you over to Iberia they would have to buy you a ticket on Iberia (which they probably arent' going to do)

I found this which would make you think you MIGHT be entitled to some cash (good luck getting it)

ACT
Regulation (EC) No 261/2004 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 February 2004 establishing common rules on compensation and assistance to passengers in the event of denied boarding and of cancellation or long delay of flights, and repealing Regulation (EEC) No 295/91.

SUMMARY
This Regulation applies to:

passengers departing from an airport located in the territory of a Member State to which the EC Treaty applies; and
passengers departing from an airport located in a third country to an airport situated in the territory of a Member State to which the EC Treaty applies,
On condition that the passengers have a confirmed reservation on the flight concerned and, except in the case of cancellation, present themselves for check-in at the time indicated in advance or, if no time is indicated, not later than 45 minutes before the published departure time.

This Regulation establishes passengers' rights if:

they are denied boarding against their will;
their flight is cancelled;
their flight is delayed.
This Regulation does not apply to passengers travelling free of charge or at a reduced fare not available directly or indirectly to the public.

Denied boarding

When an air carrier reasonably expects to deny boarding on a flight, it first calls for volunteers to surrender their reservations in exchange for certain benefits. If an insufficient number of volunteers come forward to allow the remaining passengers to board the flight, the air carrier may then deny boarding to passengers against their will, in which case it must compensate them.

Air carriers give priority to persons with reduced mobility and any persons accompanying them.

In the event of flight cancellation or denied boarding, the passengers concerned have the right to:

reimbursement of the cost of the ticket within seven days or a return flight to the first point of departure or re-routing to their final destination;
care (refreshments, meals, hotel accommodation, transport between the airport and place of accommodation, two free telephone calls, telex or fax messages, or e-mails);
compensation totalling:
- EUR 250 for all flights of 1500 kilometres or less;

- EUR 400 for all intra-Community flights of more than 1500 kilometres, and for all other flights between 1500 and 3500 kilometres;

- EUR 600 for all other flights.

Delays

The Regulation introduces a three-tier system:

in the event of long delays (two hours or more, depending on the distance of the flight), passengers must in every case be offered free meals and refreshments plus two free telephone calls, telex or fax messages, or e-mails;
if the time of departure is deferred until the next day, passengers must also be offered hotel accommodation and transport between the airport and the place of accommodation;
when the delay is five hours or longer, passengers may opt for reimbursement of the full cost of the ticket together with, when relevant, a return flight to the first point of departure

Viajero2

SpainAir is at it AGAIN! Not surprisingly because SpanAir is NOTORIOUS for cancelling the Madrid-Granada route with minutes notice (literally!). Consider yourself lucky that you have been given advance notice....

As of last Summer (2007) when SpanAir pulled this one on passengers in the midst of the vacation season (sweet!), SpanAir would offered the passengers three alternatives: flight Iberia (when/if space available), a bus ticket, or a refund. As bad as the situation is, I haven't heard of them offering no alternative, I think you are missing something...

NEDSIRELAND

CarolA writes: "As I understand the EU rules all you are really entitled to is a refund. One of the risks of the numerous "discount" airlines that have sprung up over the years is that they do NOT have any "interline" agreements. In other words they can't write you over to Iberia they would have to buy you a ticket on Iberia (which they probably arent' going to do)"

We're not talking about ClickAir or Vueling here, Carol: SpanAir has been in business more than 10-years and is a Star Alliance Carrier. It even Code-Shares with Lufthansa on flights between Germany & Spain.

My experience tells me SpanAir does have Interline Agreements with Air Europa & Iberia (on routes such as Madrid-Santiago). My R/T Ticket was for SpanAir; the flight back to Madrid was on an Air Europa Acft.

On my arrival from EWR, SpanAir was nice enough to hold my Madrid-Santiago flight for me (about 15min) in Madrid when I was about to miss my connection.

I agree with Viajero2 in his/her suggestion that you may be missing something.

cova

Ned, Spanair might be a Star Alliance member, but in terms of reliability, they are far lower than Clickair or Vueling.

Clickair belongs to Iberia, and Vueling has put up people in Iberia flights when left stranded abroad. My flights with them have been pretty decent.

On the other hand, Spanair´s delays are a bit of a joke here. Somehow you know that if you are flying with them, you will have one hour delay or more (yesterday evening I was flying back from Bilbao to Madrid with Iberia. The Spanair flight had almost three hours delay, and if you had done your checking on-line, they didn´t give you a food voucher or anything similar). They are having internal problems since a couple of years, and the customers are suffering for it.

I´d say that tourart should try to get Spanair to change them to an Iberia flight, or at least reimburse them.

By my own experience, I know that getting ugly with them doesn´t get you anything. It is as if they don´t really care.

Rgds, Cova

detraveler

I had booked the same flight for May and it was cancelled recently. I got a refund from Spanair and rebooked on a late afternoon flight on Iberia. It was a bit more expensive than the Spanair flight but we liked the time even better.

detraveler

I forgot to mention Spainair offered another nonstop that was in the am (too early for us) and a connection through Barcelona (took longer than the train) and got in too late at night for us. Since they could not re -accomdate us they issued a refund. I think that is the general practice for all airlines when they have a schedule change.

nexenrod

I had recently had a SPANair flight to Vienna cancel (monday afternoon) for no explained reason. It was there for booking and then later just disappeared for no explained reason??

aslideser

spanair cancelled our flight. we paid for the sms for mobile phone, so we thought they will give us information about flight changes. But no informations. we paid for the hotel,and then, German tour, and other flights. we dont know what to do. i am planning to comminicate with Spanish goverment. i found another flight which cost 500 euro for one person( we were 2 people) they had another flight but they did not give me two tickets to that flight. they just said, we cannot do anything, its your problem... it is unbeliavable.

danon

Spanair canceled our flight Seville - Barcelona.(April)
Fortunately, they had two flights at other times the same day.