Written by Ben Buckton - Incidentsoftravel.com

Dear Mr Buckton. We’re sorry, your flight has been cancelled.

This was the message I received as Susie and I drove to the airport this morning:

A follow-up email told me I’d been bumped onto an alternative flight at 9am tomorrow morning, so I’m still here! We just turned around at the first opportunity and came home again.

Thanks so much for all of your messages of support and encouragement, timed beautifully for my ‘departure’ today. I’m just sorry that I couldn’t use them on the day they were at their freshest, but they should keep for 24 hours and be just as welcome tomorrow morning.

It had all been going so well. I’d made one or two small packing adjustments first thing this morning:

My two boxes were signed, sealed and ready to be delivered…

…and I was all ready to be delivered too.

Instead I now have a hotel booking to rearrange, a night’s camping to rebook, a bike-as-luggage booking to reconfirm, an alarm clock to set for stupid-o’clock, and a few other knock-on effects to plan for. But on the bright side, I have one more day at home with Susie, the chance for a decent second breakfast (the meal of champions, which I’ll get stuck into as soon as I’ve posted this), and I’ll now miss some heavy rain in Halifax today, which is fine by me.

A great comment from the very good Friend of the Blog Judith McMullen (hello Judith!) back in Sept 2019 came into my mind as we drove home. On that occasion I had volunteered to be bumped to another flight from Copenhagen to London in return for cash and a free 2nd breakfast, and then lost my luggage as a result:

‘Well, it had to end with a bang not a whimper, in keeping with other dramas encountered on your trip , Ben! You could now be described as a deliberate catastrophiser however!’

Let’s pretend this never happened, and start all over again in the morning. Air Canada, I do hope your planes are all feeling better tomorrow…Bx

10 thoughts on “Dear Mr Buckton. We’re sorry, your flight has been cancelled.”

  1. Oh noooooo!
    Were you in the middle of Middlemarch? (!)
    I have been known to break bad desperate holiday fiction down spines in the interests of space saving and leave the read pages on a bench. It’s a bit cruel I suppose if the next reader actually wanted to know what happens on page 127…

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    1. So sorry to hear about this delay, Ben. But good that you’ll miss the heavy rain in Halifax! There’s always a silver lining…
      Fingers firmly crossed for Air Canada in the morning, and safe flight.
      Look forward to following you on your travels xx

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  2. Oh no!! So sorry to hear this. Not the best way to start the adventure! But, there’s another possible silver lining… because it’s due to a technical fault rather than weather, you should hopefully be able to claim a nice bit of compensation (£520 for this length of delay, transatlantic). Fingers crossed!!

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    1. Hi Kevin, bearer of positive news! Your flying experience is coming in handy! I’ll keep everything crossed that that’s the case. They keep it quiet tho don’t they? I’ve registered the claim online and they say 72 hours to ‘establish responsibility’! Do they require receipts of any kind?

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      1. They certainly do keep it quiet! Have a look here, though: https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/consumer/holiday-cancellations-and-compensation/if-your-flights-delayed-or-cancelled/

        And it works – I’ve been lucky enough to get the full £520 when they bumped me onto a flight that landed 5 hours after I was originally due to land, and it all went through pretty quickly (with BA). They shouldn’t need you to provide anything as they have all the details already, but that will probably depend on the airline. Incidentally, you may find a stray email or two in the coming days from ‘helpful’ legal companies saying that you may be entitled to compensation… ignore these of course, and just deal with the airline directly. Good luck!

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      2. Wow – top tips Kevin, thank you so much. I’ll remember that about the fishing emails. I ended up on that link page you sent when I googled ‘flight compensation’ earlier, so I’ll wait and see what happens and post the results here. Hope you’re very well Mr V and have a great summer.

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