A few weeks back, I was flying from Valencia to Zurich to London Heathrow with Switzerland’s flag carrier airline, SWISS. SWISS is a member of Star Alliance, which has 28 member airlines — helpful, for when you need to book onward flights to destinations not directly served by your airline. Both flights would be operated by SWISS, and I had a connection time of 60 minutes in Zurich.
After flying from Valencia, upon arrival to Zurich, I was informed by ground staff that my connecting flight to London Heathrow was cancelled due to ‘operational reasons’ and that the next SWISS flight (with at least one empty seat) wasn’t for another six hours. SWISS may be in Star Alliance, but (understandably) none of its partner airlines operate on the Zurich to London Heathrow route, and so transferring to a partner airlines’ flight was not an option.
The next part is very simple but very important — and something I always do when my flight has been cancelled.
I left the connecting-flight transit desk and checked (on my phone) for all flights leaving Zurich to London, within the six-hour window that SWISS were expecting me to wait for. There were two flights, both with British Airways — and with seats available. British Airways is not a partner of SWISS, and has no link with the airline — but this does not always matter.
Given SWISS were at fault with cancelling my London flight, the ‘power’ moves to the hands of the passenger. As a passenger, you must remember that the airline has an obligation to get you to your destination, regardless of alliances, partners or codeshare agreements.
I returned to the transit desk and informed the agent that there were seats available on a British Airways flight, leaving from the same terminal in 45 minutes. At first they were hesitant, informing me that British Airways was not a partner of SWISS. But upon checking with her supervisor, she was instructed: “We can absolutely book Mr Macheras onto the BA flight if there are available seats” explaining that “despite the two airlines not being partners in any way, this is something we are able to do, as SWISS will simply pay British Airways for the seat.”
After a few minutes, the agent presented me with a British Airways boarding pass to London, and I was on my way to the gate, where boarding was already underway. I reached London around five hours earlier than I would have had I just accepted taking the next available SWISS flight.
The concept of being rebooked onto a competitor airline is widely unknown to passengers in the industry, and I followed up with this scenario to discover that out of all passengers on my cancelled London flight, I was the only passenger to have been rebooked onto a BA flight — the rest of the passengers waited six hours for the next SWISS flight. This isn’t because I was given any kind of ‘special treatment’ but it’s because those other passengers did not arrive at the transit desk requesting to be transferred onto a specific flight (regardless of the airline) — instead they received boarding passes for what they were told was the ‘next available flight’, and didn’t question it further.
An airline rebooking passengers onto a competitor airline is among one of the standard practices of the industry, but it’s little-known, never advertised, and never highlighted by the airline.
Each flight ticket has value to an airline, and most will be able to book onto competitor carriers, especially if you explain to the agent how it can be done.
I’ve used this flight cancellation ‘strategy’ countless times, and the agents themselves are often surprised to realise they possess the ability to rebook passengers onto a competitor airline.
Ultimately, disruption hampers airline operations, and the sooner a passenger can be accommodated — the better.
The author is an aviation analyst. Twitter handle: @AlexInAir
