Strikes affecting Belgian airports in 2014-2015

[Stij]

One of my "I don't fly contract, I will fly Ryanair" consultants tried to outsmart us all at work last week when he self-booked a Ryanair ticket for a joint trip and on Friday was convinced his flight would still operate because contrary to us, he didn't get a call to reschedule to the best of his convenience and yesterday he even joked on FB about going alone as he could check in for his flight of today still, but off course, a couple of hours before the departure this morning, he was informed by text about the "unforeseen" cancelation of his flight.

I keep wondering: who's most to blame? FR or that consultant?

FR for not cancelling the flight and thus not allowing free changes of schedule.
I think a lot of newsreading pax probably rescheduled their flight and paid for it = extra money for FR.

The consultant for not reading the news and beleiving he could fly...

Cheers,

Stij

[Inquirer]

We'll we all knew about the strike, so no surprise at all.
We simply took it as an interesting 'test case', watching the outcome as I've shared it here.
Really amazing to see how 5 people were contacted by our airline to reschedule the trip proactively and for free just a few hours after the announcement of the full closure of the airspace over Belgium whereas one wasn't informed by his airline at all and was kept completely unaware by them to the point he could even check in for his Ryanair flight of this morning, yesterday afternoon still?
It's not that the outcome is a surprise to any of us, including the 'victim' , it's the way in which they seem to be blindly neglecting reality until it hits them. But as you mention, there's indeed a financial aspect to not willing to be blinking first which I didn't think of.
Still, with a new type of customer comes a new type of attitude; these kind of "tricks" are maybe okay with naive leisure travellers, but they really have no place in a world of corporate flyers as they do not foster much trust. You really can' expect people to be knowing about general strikes in every country in the world themselves.

[Acid-drop]

http://www.flightradar24.com/GWI48W/50be54e
strange routing because of the strike ?

[sdbelgium]

Sorry to say, but all the flights showed up on the "Cancelled flights" section a few days ago, with the possibility for a rebooking or a refund. Also, a message on the Ryanair homepage was posted, informing all passengers of the strike in Belgium. Links below for reference.

http://www.cloud.scorebuddy.co.uk/ryana ... 2014-12-15
http://www.ryanair.com/ie/travel-updates/

[Stij]

Sorry to say, but all the flights showed up on the "Cancelled flights" section a few days ago, with the possibility for a rebooking or a refund. Also, a message on the Ryanair homepage was posted, informing all passengers of the strike in Belgium.

OK, I didn't have this piece of information.

But still:

Why was check-in still open???

Why wasn't the pax contacted? I don't expect to be called in person, but an email with a link to reschedule should be possible and affordable, even for a LCC. Maybe such an email was sent, but ignored by this pax... don't know.

Cheers,

Stij

[Inquirer]

Good questions indeed.
All I know is they clearly stay low profile in the run up to this strike and towards their already booked customers they take an attitude of "not to know for sure yet" and "to be trying" which I find weird as the others were already announcing the full cancelation of their flights for the day, but as Stij said, it may be a matter of not willing to blink first as that one has to take the financial hit of the rebooking.

Fwiw- note the wording in the announcement dated today (linked to above); it shows exactly the attitude.

Ryanair has been advised of a National Strike in Belgium on Monday 15th December 2014.

We are not yet certain of the level of disruption expected, however if the strike action goes ahead there is likely to be cancellations and delays to flights to/from Belgium.

In the event that we are forced to cancel flights due to this strike action, we will update this notice on Saturday 13 December at 09.00 GMT.
We sincerely apologise for any inconvenience caused by this situation which is outside of our control.

Btw- there's something weird with the dates there too?

[sean1982]

Inquirer, you are once again spreading wrong information. Ryanair has cancelled all flights on saturday morning at 09.00GMT allready and all customers who were supposed to fly today received an email for a refund or a free re-booking/routing. And dont try to deny it because my brother was due to fly back from MAD today and also received said email!

[Inquirer]

Wrong information? It's the factual account of what happened.
Your brother has another/better experience, which is very good as that's the minimum you could expect, but obviously it's not the case for everybody.
Or are you saying I am lying??? My take is their back up plan is rather chaotic in this case, as also evidenced by the very weird communication of today (see above) or the fact they had to divert flights inbound to Belgium last night because the strike was on as from 10 PM, exactly as announced BTW; so some people clearly got better dealt with as others depending who takes care of them exactly; that's not wrong information, but merely inconvenient information rather, maybe?

[sean1982]

Nope .. all customers who we're booked onto a flight to/from Belgium today received the same email giving them the chance for a refund or a free re-booking/routing. So either you or your colleague has the wrong information or didn't check their email/spam folder.

The other option for yesterday evening was cancelling the flights ... so they chose to operate the flights and get our customers as close to BE as possible and then bus them to their destination from there. Pretty much like JAF and HQ are doing ... What's disorganised about that?

With regard to the notices: there are 2 .. one was posted on friday evening the other one saturday.

Friday evening:

Ryanair has been advised of a National Strike in Belgium on Monday 15th December 2014.

We are not yet certain of the level of disruption expected, however if the strike action goes ahead there is likely to be cancellations and delays to flights to/from Belgium.

In the event that we are forced to cancel flights due to this strike action, we will update this notice on Saturday 13 December at 09.00 GMT.
We sincerely apologise for any inconvenience caused by this situation which is outside of our control.
Keep Updated - follow us on Twitter @RyanairFlights

saturday:

We regret to advise customers that due to a national strike in Belgium on Monday 15th December 2014, we have been forced to cancel the flights listed below.
This national strike may also affect flights overflying Belgium and we expect further flight delays and cancellations later on the day.
Customers flying on 15 December will be updated on your flight status via email and/or the mobile phone number you provided at time of booking. You may also monitor your flight status online: click here
We ask customers to please monitor this notice which will be updated throughout the day. Ryanair sincerely apologises for any delays or inconvenience caused by these disruptions.
List of cancelled flights: Monday,15 December
TO REBOOK YOUR CANCELLED FLIGHT click here
NOTE: If your booking includes a flight which has not been cancelled you will be UNABLE to transfer that flight to an alternative date online. To transfer any such flight free of charge please contact one of our call centres, see below.
TO APPLY FOR A REFUND ONLINE click here
For call centre contact numbers and opening hours click here
For written EU261 notice on compensation and assistance click here
Follow us on Twitter @RyanairFlights

[Inquirer]

Nope .. all customers who we're booked onto a flight to/from Belgium today received the same email giving them the chance for a refund or a free re-booking/routing. So either you or your colleague has the wrong information or didn't check their email/spam folder?

Maybe that's the case, I don't know where they went wrong, but maybe it's also due to the fact it was decided way too late (and in a weekend!), rather than ASAP and thus on a weekday?

I tell you, it was strange to see how it was business as usual from one airline Friday afternoon, with travel agencies and airline customer service desks on the phone to rebook flights on the same airport at the same time. This really ran a bell to the point it became sort if a funny thing to follow up on, which is why I explicitly asked about the plans of non-Belgian airlines overhere, as no official information was out yet.

BTW- Announcing cancelation so late on a Saturday is not very convenient for corporate travellers supposed to fly on a Monday morning, of course as they are out if the office, without back office travel support to arrange a new date for the meeting abroad and in case they haven't booked through their travel agency, are also without emergency help desk to reschedule (the rest of) their trip which may have followed up on the first cancelled leg.

"Not being certain" on a Friday afternoon, whereas all the others are already rebooking their passengers to later/earlier dates is rather weird to say the least and it is very inconvenient for corporate travellers in particular. In fact, a Saturday cancelation may still be timely for leisure passengers, but it is simply too late for them for all the reasons given above, of course.

[Stij]

In summary:

FR cancelled a bit late (Saturday instead of Friday)
The consultant should check his email better (Especially since he KNEW things were tricky)!

One question remains: why was checkin still open???

Cheers,

Stij

[Inquirer]

In summary:

FR cancelled a bit late (Saturday instead of Friday)
The consultant should check his email better (Especially since he KNEW things were tricky)!

One question remains: why was checkin still open???

Cheers,

Stij

1- late cancelation is indeed a problem. I understand you sometimes can't avoid it, but here they could and hesitated. As pointed out, it's hard to reschedule a business meeting on your own over weekend, isn't it? And by the time you are able to contact everybody you need, it's tuesday at best, given the strike on Monday!

2- neglecting mails, yes possibly, although don't forget corporate servers often have time buffers in weekends, so mailings send out may not reach their destination before mondays to avoid thousands of "out of office mails" being sent back and forth. Not a very clever setting maybe, I admit, but not a very clever way to communicate either with (new) corporate clients over a weekend then, especially not if it is urgent: give us a call, maybe, like all others do?
It really shows they are new to this game and don't understand us, that's my take of it.

3- The mysteries of IT, to add insult over injury?

[Passenger]

In summary:
FR cancelled a bit late (Saturday instead of Friday)
The consultant should check his email better (Especially since he KNEW things were tricky)!
One question remains: why was checkin still open???

1- late cancelation is indeed a problem. I understand you sometimes can't avoid it, but here they could and hesitated. As pointed out, it's hard to reschedule a business meeting on your own over weekend, isn't it? And by the time you are able to contact everybody you need, it's tuesday at best, given the strike on Monday!

2- neglecting mails, yes possibly, although don't forget corporate servers often have time buffers in weekends, so mailings send out may not reach their destination before mondays to avoid thousands of "out of office mails" being sent back and forth. Not a very clever setting maybe, I admit, but not a very clever way to communicate either with (new) corporate clients over a weekend then, especially not if it is urgent: give us a call, maybe, like all others do? It really shows they are new to this game, that's my take of it.

3- The mysteries of IT, to add insult over injury?

I agree with Inquirer. The full strike was announced on Friday around 13h30 by Belga. All online newspapers copy/pasted that Belga press release on their website immediately. Just one example: Het Laatste Nieuws has put it online at 13h55 (I received a breaking news email from De Tijd at 13h49).

Till Friday noon, all airlines were expecting only a disruption of normal flight operations. Example: Brussels Airlines cancelled 40% of its flights, probably because 60% was the maximum they could handle with limited ground & handling services. Some holiday charters were moved to Lille because a strike of ground handling was expected and luggage is extremely important for tourists.

As from Friday noon 14h/15h, it was 100% sure that all Belgian airports would remain closed and all Belgian airlines cancelled their flights. So one can indeed wonder why other airlines waited till Saturday 09h to advise their passengers.

See also this post on Friday, at 14h53:

Belgocontrol, the ATC provider in Belgium, will go on strike as from Sunday 10PM for 24h.

To put it exactly, the ACV/CSC-Transcom union of Belgocontrol will go on strike. Therefore it is expected that there will be no air traffic at all in Belgium on 15 December.

A pity! One could have hoped that airspace over Belgium would have remained open, since Charleroi Airport was expected to function normally at 100% and Brussels Airport at perhaps 50% (Liège Airport was going to be closed anyway. I don't know what were the expectations for Ostend and Antwerp).

[Homo Aeroportus]

Well, actually Brussels Airport did not help Ryanair either.

When I checked Brussels Airport web site yesterday around 21:00, all flights to land after 22:00M were tagged "Cancelled" but for Ryanair from BCN and FCO.

That also could lead to some confusion.

H.A.

[sn26567]

3558 Jetairfly passengers did travel on 31 flights today despite the strike. They were treated with warm coffee, tea, tomato soup en fresh drinks before boarding buses. Flights took off and landed at airports in neighbouring countries. Imagination at work...

[Stij]

Congratulations to Jetairfly!

[Passenger]

Well, actually Brussels Airport did not help Ryanair either. When I checked Brussels Airport web site yesterday around 21:00, all flights to land after 22:00M were tagged "Cancelled" but for Ryanair from BCN and FCO. That also could lead to some confusion.

I've checked brusselsairport.be yesterday around 22h, and 100% of all incoming and outgoing flights were marked in red: 98% flights were announced as cancelled and 2% were marked as diverted (thus also in red). Not one single flight was announced as scheduled, except for just one forgotten AF-flight around 17h30 today.

Hence my post at 22h40:"...Seems Etihad's EY056 to Abu Dhabi was the last one to depart today (ETD 21h10, dep at 21h50)..."

[sn26567]

Tomorrow 16 December, Federal Police is on strike at Brussels Airport. We expect queues at border control, so be at the airport well ahead of your departure time.

[Homo Aeroportus]

Well, actually Brussels Airport did not help Ryanair either. When I checked Brussels Airport web site yesterday around 21:00, all flights to land after 22:00M were tagged "Cancelled" but for Ryanair from BCN and FCO. That also could lead to some confusion.

I've checked brusselsairport.be yesterday around 22h, and 100% of all incoming and outgoing flights were marked in red: 98% flights were announced as cancelled and 2% were marked as diverted (thus also in red). Not one single flight was announced as scheduled, except for just one forgotten AF-flight around 17h30 today.

Hence my post at 22h40:"...Seems Etihad's EY056 to Abu Dhabi was the last one to depart today (ETD 21h10, dep at 21h50)..."

I checked their web page at 21:00, so I'm happy to read that Brussels Airport corrected their mistake eventually.
It was strange indeed that only the FR flights were seemingly announced to land after 22:00L while all others were as you said either cancelled or diverted.
On the other hand I haven't seen any info on Ryanair web site concerning these diversions on 14Dec.
They must have been considered a while before take-off I guess, or would you be allowed to file a flight plan to a destination in an airspace closed to traffic?

H.A.

[airazurxtror]

A general strike is not always a total strike.
There were not many cars - and no buses, trams or métros in Brussels center, but in the shops, hospitals, and most other activities it was business as usual, despite the "general" strike.
Like monday last week : there was a general strike in Brabant, but the Brussels airport was not closed and not all flights were cancelled.
A CSC/ACV strike at Belgocontrom actually has been followed by the socialist union and apparently even by the non-unionised workers (more or less willingly), that was not clear from the start.
But it's an heaven-sent gift for the Ryanair bashers, dear old Inquirer in the first place !