Cancellations

Can someone tell me what happens when a flight is cancelled because say in an extreme case VS8 (for example) developes a problem and is completely unable to fly. Is it simply a matter of providing all those passengers with hotel vouchers or would VS fly another aircraft in at short notice. Do they have aircraft on standby for these kind of eventualities? Would they fly another aircraft in from New York?

vs canclled our flight ewr-lr vs18 we were delayed for 14hrs[V] because our a/c had a fuel leak teir spare a/c was suppling aid for the tsunami so i think we had to waid for another a/c to turn up, we were given a room to stay in for te day, meal vouchers and 50% off our next vs flight.

My mom was on VS1 over the summer, which cancled due to a mechanical issue. Passengers were issued hotel vouchers, ground transportation to the hotel, and a 50% off coupon for their next VS flight. The flight was then operated the next morning with a scheduled departure out of LHR of something like 10:00L. They simply delayed the flight until the aircraft had been fixed and flew the same aircraft with the same passenger load the following morning.

Had a similar incident with BA en route to Toronto a few years back. Had to return to LHR after about 2 hours owing to a technical problem. Crew out of hours and no replacements available so we were all scattered around the various LHR hotels and then collected the next morning for another go. I think we got 20% vouchers.

The other half was in SFO when one passenger reported other passengers looking suspicious. Various passengers were then asked to go speak to security at the door then all passengers were told to get off the plane for a full security check for the plane. That took over 3 hours after which the flight crew ran out of flight time given they still had the full long-haul flight ahead of them and could not fly for another 24 hours.

Anyway, the passengers had to be transferred to a hotel, after waiting for all the transport and hotel arrangements to be made and got dinner/breakfast at the hotel. In UCS, in addtion to the 50% off the next flight (valid for a year), he also got 50,000 miles credited to his Flying Club account; so thats a free UC one-way fare and 50% off the next flight which is good compensation. And Virgin equipment was not even responsible for the delay. At least there was no need to fly another aircraft there.

In answer to the original question, I think it would be rare for another aircraft to be sent out. Most fault could be fixed within 24 hours. If the plane was in JFK, where there are several flights a day, then VS could try and spread the passengers to the other flights over a couple of days if the other flights were not full. This would be the cheapest option for VS. This would be more difficult if there were only one flight a day like SFO. Still, transferring passengers to other airlines which have empty seats might be cheaper than flying an empty plane out to pick up the stranded passengers.

Great reply, great answer.[y]

We had a cancelled BA J flight and were transfered onto Air France J that departed about the same time, think we got 10k miles each.

It depends where you are - at the out stations it's harder to magic up a spare aircraft, for example at MIA if an aircraft went tech they'd have to do more than look behind the fridge for a spare one.

The time it takes to get in a new aircraft in this case would naturally affect the delay time. But in this case pax would probably be re-protected onto other carriers or bumped onto the next days flight/wait til the problem is fixed/re route pax etc.

But at LHR? Why, they play music planes!

I recently was on a BA flight from the Bahamas (Virgin only flies once a day). Our plane developed a technical fault that prevented it from flying at all. They ended up putting us in a hotel overnight and rebooking us on Virgin the next day (YAY!). However, they offered no other compensation, either with miles or future flight discounts. We even tried complaining, but their response was that they are not responsible for unexpected mechanical problems (then who is?)!

Same thing happened with Virgin a few years ago, and I got 50% off a future flight (I could have had a hotel but didn't need it).

Virgin definitely handles these situations better than their larger rival.