Infuriating CityJet treatment
Being one of the regulars at LCY (as well as here) I am really peeved to be treated as follows by CityJet.
On Wednesday 30 April booked out on the 5153, 14.00 LCY to Belfast City on the following Tuesday, 6 May, business meeting in Belfast the next day, returning on the 5154, 17.40 Belfast to LCY. All confirmed OK.
On Friday 2 May, at about close of business at 17.00, advised by travel agency that CityJet/Air France had just "rescheduled" my flights. Outbound now 2h45m later at 16.45, return now 2h55m earlier at 14.45. This is now useless for the business meeting in Belfast.
Only options offered, take the change or cancel.
Scrutiny of the CityJet/AFschedules shows they have cut from 3 to 2 rotations on Belfast, with just a couple of days notice. As, like most LCY routes, the morning and evening rotations were the key ones, with the midday run a filler, it is most strange to have redone the schedule, still with a Belfast-based aircraft, with departures from there now only at 08.05 and 14.45. The aircraft is back at Belfast and bedded down for the night by 18.00.
This has all the hallmarks of CityJet being short of crews and trying to stretch as best they can two round trips on the route with one crew only. You just don't use an aircraft on an LCY route like this if you can avoid it.
My questions are :
1. What on earth are CityJet doing ?
2. For those who know the EU cancellation regulations better than I do, am I entitled to anything that is going to partially offset an on-the-day expensive BMI ticket from LHR to BHD instead ? Rearrangement/cancellation with one working day's notice.
3. In the light of all this, is a letter to the UK OfT (see discussion above) about such treatment, and CityJet having insufficient resources to handle their schedules, during the "monopoly" investigation going to give them a bit of a wake-up?