Airline has changed my departure airport

I just checked confirmation details of my flight next week and I see the bastard airline has changed the airport from Leipzig to Berlin. A major friggin' pain in the arse for me. Can I claim any compensation for this? I have to take additional time off work, extra travelling costs, travelling through Berlin in rush hour, travelling with 3 kids...etc.

Which airline was it?? You'd have to check the T&C's related to the airline, and then check with them to see if youre eligible for compo. Sounds like a pain in the bum...

It would be most unusual for an airline to change airports without warning you beforehand or offering you a solution to facilitate transfer. Are you sure your confirmation shows one airport, but now you find you fly from another, without any word of warning? Or is this some sort of holiday travel package for which they might have originally planned departure from one airport, but because of shortage of subscribers (to the holiday) have now amortised departures from another? This would often be permitted under many package holiday contracts subject to a distance limitation.

Has happenend to me before YL6 from the airline.
Was Iberia and after a few phone calls they re booked us a day later flying from original aiport.

Yep the bastards AIR BERLIN don't fly out of Leipzig anymore (as from January 2008). So they simply changed my flight to Berlin without bothering to inform me. They offered to change my flight to another time for free or give me my money back. No word of apology.

What do you want them to say??

"we are really really sorry and we promise that it wont happen to you again?"

Thats what happens when you try and travel on the cheap..

Actually that would be nice.


Price wasn't the factor here. It was more the convenience of flying from my local airport.

I think your reaction is extreme. I'm sure they will have sent you an email advising of the change, but you maybe missed it, didn't note it, or it got spammed. I fly Air Berlin quite regularly, and I've had email advice of changes and SMS advice of delays. "They offered to change my flight to another time for free or give me my money back" is a fair offer on a cheap airline and as I see it an implicit apology.

They sent an email confirming my booking. You're right I didn't read it. Because it wasn't labelled "Important - Change of Booking" or something similiar.

I sorry for getting angry at Air Belin. They are obvoiusly a great Airline. I'm not worthy to lick their shiny boots.

how come you started this thread then if you dont know about it

Glad its all sorted now..

Advert closed??

When one of my parishioner books a wedding at my church and if I change the church, I would send them a letter saying sorry the church has changed are you ok with this. I wouldn't send them confirmation letter and not mention in my letter the church has changed.

After phoning around, Air Berlin have agreed to pay 0.30 cents per km and parking costs. God bless them.

The fuckers in the Luftwaffe did this to me when they stopped flying from Stansted. They could have planned this ahead, stopped taking bookings from a certain date, but no, I only found out because a few days before departure I forgot my flight times and phoned them to confirm. They said they could fly me out through Stansted, but I'd have to fly back from Heathrow or Gatwick (adding over 250Km to my journey from home), or fly another route from Stansted at horrible times. Apology? No. Refund? No. Upgrade to business class? NO. They took my money, then told me to fook off. Bastards.

When did Lufthansa fly from/to Stansted? Must have been a long time ago, as I don't remember it.

The distance between Heathrow and Stansted is 105km by the way, not 250km

Still costs the best part of 30 quid and three hours though.

I'd rather rim Th*tcher than EVER fly to Stanstead again.

It was quite a while ago, maybe 1996 or 97, was pretty cheap as I recall.

Gatwick is about 250Km from Stansted, anyway as MonksTown said it would have cost me a fortune, loads of time, and meant travelling early in the morning on Sunday not late at night which rather spoiled a weekend break . Very annoying and not what is expected from full fare airlines. It was a long time ago and opened the way for years of an easyJet (easilyTheWorld'sWorstAirline) monopoly from Munich to Stansted, thus creating easyMoney.

I had another email from Air Berlin today. They've made another offer today : 100 EURO discount and 50 EURO off next flight. I told them I was happy with that and I'd fly again with them again (which is true).