Delays and cancellations

Inimene lennujaamas

What to do if your flight is delayed or cancelled

We realise our passengers want their trips to go according to plan and to reach their destinations at the time they’re expecting to. As an airline, that’s what we want for our passengers as well. We want everyone who flies with Nordica to be a satisfied customer and for the quality of the service we provide to live up to people’s expectations. 

Our priority is to ensure the safety and security of our passengers every step of the way. But because we refuse to cut corners where safety’s concerned, this can sometimes lead to a flight being delayed or having to be cancelled altogether.

The ground-handling staff at the airport are obliged to:

  • provide you with food vouchers if your flight is being officially counted as delayed;
  • help you find alternative flights if your flight is cancelled;
  • if required, offer transport and accommodation (including catering) if there are no alternative flights that same day;
  • give you information about your rights;
  • give you the opportunity to make two phone calls at the cost of the airline.

 

  1. If you face these problems, our recommendation is that you first talk to the ground-handling staff at the airport, whose contact details can be found HERE.
  2. We recommend contacting the travel agency you bought your tickets from, since they can also help you find new flights. If there are a lot of people at the airport trying to sort out their situation, calling the travel agency may lead to a quicker solution than standing in line
  3. We recommend calling Nordica’s customer service line. When air traffic generally is affected for some reason, the lines may be busy or even overloaded. Please be patient.

Movement of information

The ongoing and effective exchange of information between an airline and a passenger is ensured by contact details. When you buy a ticket from Nordica website, you can be sure we’ll be able to keep in touch with you. However, if you buy a ticket from a travel agent or via another website, make sure your phone number is known to the airline. If there are changes to the flight schedule, we can then inform you of them straight away. If a passenger fails to provide their contact details, unfortunately there’s no way we can provide them with information.

Your main sources of information whenever flights are delayed or cancelled are nevertheless airports themselves and the customer service channels of airlines. 

What happens in Nordica when a problem arises?

As soon as our operations centre receives word of there being an issue (bad weather, a strike, airport restrictions, technical problems, etc.) our planners start reorganising our flights. In this case we also have to check our flight crews’ schedules, and unfortunately this can take some time. The number of hours a flight crew can work is limited and subject to very strict rules and regulations. For that very reason it’s hard for the airline to share any precise information during the first hour, since we’re busy putting our plans together. Cancelling a flight is the most difficult and most costly decision an airline can make, but at the same time it’s part and parcel of commercial flying.

At the same time as we start reorganising our flights, the ground-handling services at the airports and our customer service staff start rebooking passengers’ tickets. Each group of passengers is dealt with individually, with the best solution found wherever possible. But since this all takes a long time, it can mean long queues and long waits. You can rest assured, however, that everyone at the airline is doing their best to come up with solutions for everyone as quickly as they can.

Passengers have rights when their flights are delayed or cancelled

If a flight is cancelled, passengers have the right to compensation and assistance in accordance with regulation EC261/2004 of the European Union. More detailed information is available at airports in the leaflets provided by our partners and on our website.

 

Why are flights delayed and cancelled?

As passengers, we want to receive the service we’ve paid for in purchasing our ticket – and that is every passenger’s right. Buying a ticket constitutes a contract between you and the airline, and both parties to a contract have to fulfil their obligations. In aviation, however, the idea that a flight must take off whatever the cost does not hold. Between what passengers want and what airlines consider viable, the safest choices must be made – otherwise flying wouldn’t be as safe as it is today. It would be wrong to think that changes to flight schedules are due to people being incompetent or negligent. There are various external factors which, when they occur, leave airlines unable to control what happens or to keep to their original plans and schedules. Flight punctuality depends on all sorts of things: the weather; how much air traffic there is; airport restrictions; ground handling; passenger movements; technical issues; strikes; and restrictions on air space.

Here at Nordica we promise that if your flight doesn’t go according to plan, we’ll fulfil our contractual obligations and do everything we can to ensure that you still reach your destination safely.