Liverpool fans' Kiev flights cancelled
 

Champions League: Liverpool fans' Kiev flights cancelled - BBC News

Hundreds of Liverpool fans have been left stranded after their flights to the Champions League final were cancelled

Operator World Choice Sports said it could not secure landing slots at Kiev's Boryspil Airport for three planes.

Disappointed fans, who had paid up to £1,000 each for flights, were frantically trying to make alternative arrangements.

Liverpool face Real Madrid on Saturday.

In the 3 hours from 1000 to 1300 Kiev KBP has 8 scheduled arrivals.

Someone's palm not greased enough ?

Just checked and Worldchoice Sports get some pretty mixed reviews. From what I read, they certainly don't score highly on Customer Service.

Surely it is the airlines who get the slots for the aircraft not the tour operators. Something doesn't ring true with this excuse offered by the tour operator

Insurer? Ukraine? Cover withdrawn due to current situation?

It appears to be about the size of the aircraft, not time slots. Quote from Shay Soni, owner of World Choice Sports: "We are puzzled as to why they refused to give us slots for these three aircrafts, but they will give permission for 65 private jets."

Meh, my cynical mind says either the contractor did a runner with the money, or the money wasn't paid to the contractor in time. The latter seems far more plausible.

"We are puzzled as to why they refused to give us slots for these three aircrafts, but they will give permission for 65 private jets."

Haha, really?! I’m not one bit surprised and it shows they have no experience in operating in that part of the world.

CP

It seems the proposed flights were to be operated on, of all aircraft, an Ethiopian Airlines A350, which arrives Heathrow early morning, daystops, and departs evening. It was to position up to Liverpool, operate to Kiev, and then back to Heathrow for its evening departure, on Friday and Saturday, and the reverse on Sunday and Monday.

I wonder if the slots they could not get were actually at Heathrow.

The BBC article refers to three charter flights.

Yes its the Airlines. Maybe its parking related. If there's a good reason to miss Monarch Airlines this might be it.

Down here in Oz they are saying there is some correlation between three aircraft loads of fans and they don't have any accommodation for them, possibly double booked. A Spanish fan was offered a room by an hotel at four times the advertised price!

There were three flights planned on ET aircraft, all using ones that daystop in Europe between their schedules.
The problem is Kiev not allocating slots to widebodies, numerous narrowbodies getting in and out ok

its a ridiculous place to hold a final, with no Loco or road options readily available so everything has to go in by charter, and Liverpool also qualified 24 hours after Madrid giving them a headstart on booking aircraft
demand was always going massively outstrip supply and some people tried to be inventive and also make a nice amount on bringing in African capacity but its just not to be.
feel for the fans but the responsibility for this starts at UEFA deciding this was a good idea, its been much worse since the match was moved to a Saturday, there was always much better charter availability midweek in May.

Finals should only be allocated to cities with at least two H24 airports in the area with sufficient parking, and also somewhere on the Loco network to give fans a reasonable chance. But when has common sense ever come into the way football is run by these bodies.

One for sure would be Brussels. This would equate to BRU-LPL-KBP-BRU then BRU-KBP-LPL-BRU. How I'd love to know what the cost of the air fare was to the punters considering it included 4 out of 6 fairly lengthy sectors being empty (positioning) sectors.

Also would need to position in a number of crews from Addis Ababa to handle the flights, so an ability to reinstate them has probably gone now. What doesn't add up is the trips were sold some weeks ago but the slots were only applied for and then denied last Friday. Ethiopian don't normally serve Kiev but I would hope they would understand how to get slots there earlier than that.

There have been various charters using long daystop aircraft over time. Qantas used to do 747 cruise charters from London to Athens on a similar basis.

Surely time to deploy Boris Johnson...............................

Airline contracts generally stipulate that slots and parking are at customer's risk, so the tour operator could end up with a massive loss, not to mention his obligations under the EU261 compensation rules. Wonder which broker put this one together ?

Now another Liverpool charter fallen through at the last minute

Champions League final: Second company cancels Kiev flight - BBC News

"aircraft does not have the correct licence" sounds like another non-EU carrier. And each such trip seems to trickle down through a whole series of unheard-of organisations.

Will the CAA show any interest in all this ? Probably not.

Looking at Kiev arrivals, there is a Bangkok Airways flight PG 9915 showing arriving from Madrid, it sounds like aircraft are being summoned from wherever, Duxford next?

Er. am I being a bit thick here, or am I maybe right in thinking that the Kiev police don't want to deal with three plane-loads of Liverpool supporters?