Do airlines replace cancelled short-haul flights by buses? If not, why not?

8/27/2014 9:26:30 AM

I’ve been offered train connections (rather than bus) in two intra-German cases with Lufthansa where the flight was cancelled, but a good ICE (high speed train) connection between the two cities exist. Basically airline staff gave me the choice: be re-booked for next day, or take the train and arrive a few hours late.

(The fact that Lufthansa often cooperates with Deutsche Bahn anyway may play a role here, including that some connections marketed with regular flight numbers are actually high speed train connections – especially short hops from Frankfurt, e.g. Frankfurt-Stuttgart. But: the particular trains I was given were NOT such trains and I was simply given a normal train ticket + reservation by the airline.)

In this case I suppose cost for accommodation or train would have worked out roughly the same for the airline, so they offered the choice to the customer – but that’s a guess of course.

10/5/2016 4:30:21 PM

I have been offered a bus ride between Basel and Zurich (along with 50 or so other passengers) to catch a flight to my final destination after a cancellation by SWISS so there is no taboo against that and the answer to your question is “Yes, they do!”. They organized it pretty quickly as well, so they were apparently ready for that, should the need arise.

I guess each airline will make specific decisions based upon what’s available/what they are used to do, how much it costs, how many passengers they need to accommodate, what passengers are entitled to in their locale, etc. If that’s not part of their standard policy or procedure, organizing a bus in a timely manner might be difficult.

Note that the bus needs to be somehow paid for, whereas the next day’s flight is going to fly anyway so adding one passenger costs essentially nothing. That might figure in the decision.

Credit:stackoverflow.com‘

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Hello,My name is Aparna Patel,I’m a Travel Blogger and Photographer who travel the world full-time with my hubby.I like to share my travel experience.

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