Air Transat -- fail.

[DawnCh]

Oh my goodness ... I had booked my flights for November with Air Transat. I purchased them solely based on the flight time ... we had an 830am departure from Toronto and an 1145am return from Orlando ... life was great.

Yesterday, they changed our flights by 7.5 hours!!!! Now we have a 430PM departure from Toronto and an 830PM return from Orlando ..

Unreal how they can make that drastic of a change

I've been waiting all day to hear back from them on how they are going to fix this for me .. I'm at the point of give me a refund and I'm done with this whole thing! GRRR

 

[bankr63]

This is not unusual with all of the carriers. Search here and you will find lots of threads on the same thing with both WJ and AC. It is one of the risks you take when purchasing your tickets so far in advance. Airlines rebalance schedules several times a year, and changes like this are common. It has happened to me twice in the past, once with my direct flight becoming a Toronto layover.

I would make the best of it if you can. This means that your "settling in" day will be much shorter, and everyone will be well rested to hit the parks the next morning - with an 11:45, most of that first day was already wasted. It also gives you a better day at the tail end of the vacation. With an 8:30 departure you can get at least a half-day in at a park if not more before you have to head to DME or airport.

 

[pigletto]

I agree this is typical of most carriers when booked this far in advance. Air Transat doesn't fly as often as some of the other carriers though so it's hard to demand a better flight time when they won't have it. I would be very surprised if you can't get a refund Dawnch, as that is a huge schedule change.

 

[Donald - my hero]

I hear your frustration -- last year we had our flight cancelled with the next available flight not till about 10 days later if we wanted the same airport. We were able to call and re-arrange our flights no charge but that was with WestJet and they have more options. I agree with pigletto that you will probably have no other choice with Air Transat, i think they only have 1 flight a day. I'm not sure what i would do in your situation --- the later departure really screws up your arrival day, but if you're not overly tired you will still be able to head to Disney Springs for a quick fix and be fresh for a rope drop the next day (if you like to do that ) We much prefer the later departure time, gives time to finish packing up and grabbing breakfast without rushing. If the weather's nice you'd even have time for a swim before the tragical distress picks you up at 4:30.

 

[Scar1199]

The new arrival day time isn't great but at least you got a later return time, with an intentional flight you'll need to leave on DME at 4:30 so you'll get a solid half day at the park.

 

[morrik5]

That happened on our daughter's last trip to WDW where she was bumped up to a 6:30 am flight and having to be at the airport that early with a 4 year old it's good we don't live more than an hour away from the airport (if Toronto traffic isn't bumper-to-bumper sitting still). That was with Air Canada.

 

[TommyJK]

Had this exact situation happen to me with Air Transat (and posted about it months ago). They had two flights per day. We picked the optimal flight time for us (6:30 pm) and they decided to cancel that flight and put us on the other (6:20 am). OVER 12 HOURS earlier.

Multiple calls and emails to try and get something out of it but nothing.

They do this all the time. Setup 2 flights per day. See which one sells better and cancel the other.

 

[dancin Disney style]

IMO, you haven't lost anything. What you had was, at best, 1/3 of a day on your arrival day and nothing on your departure day. Now with the later flights you have gained a full day on your departure day. Yes, you have lost that partial day on arrival but you have more time at the end than what you have lost.

 

[TommyJK]

For me, we were at a "loss". The switch from 6:30 PM to 6:20 am meant we had to board our dog for an extra day (taking them in Friday instead of Saturday). Plus we had planned to spend the last day (Saturday since our flight back was originally at 10:00 pm but moved up to 10:30 am) at the parks, so we lost a potential park day because we couldn't shift it to day 1 of the trip (as by the time we landed, got our luggage, retnal cal, got to hotel and settled in) it was already 1:00pm or so. And that first day was much of a write off because we were so tired from having to wake up at 2:30 am to get to the airport, through security and customs) to make a 6:20 am flight