What to do if your flight is cancelled, according to an airline worker

Apr 20, 2022

An airline employee has revealed the top three things passengers should do if their flight is cancelled. Words by Jon Hornbuckle.

With cancellations and delays happening all over the world due to staff shortages and other impacts of the pandemic, these tips could save your holiday.

Posting the video on her TikTok account, Natalie said gave her best pieces of advice amid a wave of flight cancellations.

Her first piece of advice is to google the “Bill of Rights” with the airline name.

She explained: “It will let you know what your rights are as a customer and what kind of compensation you would get for being on the tarmac for an hour, or if maybe you’ve been in the airport for five hours, what you get for that.”

What to do if your flight is cancelled, according to an airline worker

For example – the Ryanair website currently says that compensation will not be paid if the cancellation was announced more than 14 days in advance, if the delay is outside of Ryanair’s own control, or if the flight is delayed but you still arrive at the final destination less than three hours than scheduled.

Airline worker Natalie’s next bit of golden advice is to download the official smartphone app of the airline you’re flying with.

This could give you up-to-date notifications just as fast as the airline employees located at customer service points at the airport.

@adventuresofmattandnat Delayed or Cancelled Flight? ✈️ Tips & Tricks from an Airline Employee! #traveltipsandhacks #traveltips ♬ original sound – Matt and Nat

However, if there’s an issue and you need to contact someone to arrange a new flight in the case of cancellation or delay, Natalie urged all of her followers to make sure they contact the company they booked with.

While that could be direct with the airline themselves, it’s highly likely that anyone who booked with any third party would just be told to contact them directly.

What do the letters and numbers on your boarding pass mean?

“For a cancellation and you booked through a third party like Expedia, Priceline or a travel agent, usually the airline will roll you over to the next available flight.”

However, she does point out that in the case of a delay, which may result in a missed connecting flight, the best bet is to call whoever you booked through.

“Whether that was like American Airlines or or Expedia or Priceline, when you need to talk to somebody always call who you booked through. Trust me. I don’t want you waiting on hold for like five and a half hours and they’re like, ‘sorry, there’s nothing we can do, you booked it through Expedia.’”

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Natalie’s third piece of essential advice for anyone experiencing a flight cancellation or delay is to use a website called Flight Aware.

The aviation site gives passengers the ability to track the location of your specific aircraft, by inputting the relevant flight number and date of travel.

Doing this even hours before you arrive at the airport should help you gauge if your flight will be running on time or not.

A version of this article originally appeared on TheSun.co.uk. It has been reproduced here with permission.