Switzerland suddenly cancels Walter Congiu’s (56) return flight to Sardinia: “I am said to have violated ticket rules”

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“Fortunately, after Blick’s articles about deleted reservations, I checked my own Swiss reservation,” writes reader reporter Walter Congiu (56) from Lucerne to the editorial team. He was supposed to fly home on holiday airline Edelweiss on January 1 after a brief stay with relatives in Sardinia (Italy), Congiu reported. He booked his flight ticket through the Swiss platform. But his flight from Cagliari to Zurich was suddenly not found on his app on December 29.

The flight to Cagliari two days ago had gone smoothly. Unable to find a return flight among her bookings, she asked her sister in Switzerland to call Switzerland’s 0800 hotline. The lady at the call center confirmed to her sister that Congiu’s return flight with Swiss sister airline Edelweiss had been cancelled. The reason for this angers Congius: “I allegedly did not board the outgoing flight and therefore violated the ticket rules.” He was already in Sardinia! “Switzerland accuses me of breaking the rules,” the Swiss complains.

But the situation gets worse: The call center employee demanded physical evidence that Congiu had boarded the plane. That is, after the physical ticket. “Today, the vast majority of passengers no longer fly with paper tickets, they only have their tickets digitally on their mobile phones,” says Congiu.

Again no confirmation

In addition, there is neither a confirmation e-mail regarding cancellation in the e-mail box nor a refund of ticket fees on the credit card. Both will be partners in ticket cancellation. The call center worker then agrees to “get to the bottom of the matter.” Your guess: a computer error. And lo and behold: Congiu receives a new booking for this flight by email about six hours later; and at no additional cost. But also without any further notice from the airline.

“I was lucky that I didn’t have to pay extra, but if I hadn’t checked the reservation, I might have found myself at the airport without a valid ticket,” the Lucerne resident concludes.

Is it a software problem?

This is exciting because in the initial reports of mysterious flight cancellations documented by Blick, Swiss noted that if someone did not use flight coupons at the time of booking, the flight could be canceled. However, this controversial ticket rule was misapplied in this case.

Since the mysterious deletion of Swiss flight tickets was recently made public, Lufthansa subsidiary Blick has promised an “in-depth analysis” of the cases. Looks like no results yet. Meanwhile, even more reader reporters report to the editorial office that something similar happened to them.

Some suspect problems with its booking platform, which Switzerland is moving to parent company Lufthansa’s existing platform as part of a major standardization project in 2021. There was no background noise back then.

Source :Blick