Non-motoring > Reconfirming a flight Miscellaneous
Thread Author: Mapmaker Replies: 14
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 Wed 13 Nov 13 11:18 
 Reconfirming a flight - Mapmaker
"Just a brief reminder to all passengers not to forget to re-confirm your flights 72 hours prior to your departure from the UK and again prior to your return flight. There has been a spate of small timing changes by some of the airlines, and it is important that you remember to check, as you do not want to miss a flight or find yourself running across the terminal in a panic."

Is this something that has to be done with the airline in order to confirm to them that you're going to be on it - a sort of pre-check-in check-in; or is this just a matter of making sure that they haven't changed the time of your flight?

Thanks
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 Wed 13 Nov 13 11:24 
 Reconfirming a flight - Zero
both.
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 Wed 13 Nov 13 11:24 
 Reconfirming a flight - Mapmaker
OK, so how do you do it with the airline?

BA Newcastle to London

Air Canada London to Canada.
Last edited by: Mapmaker on Wed 13 Nov 13 at 11:24
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 Wed 13 Nov 13 11:25 
 Reconfirming a flight - Meldrew
Website or telephone I guess
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 Wed 13 Nov 13 11:31 
 Reconfirming a flight - Zero
the same way you booked it / checked in on line.
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 Wed 13 Nov 13 11:25 
 Reconfirming a flight - Manatee
As it's not airline specific I assume it's come from a holiday firm.

I'd read it as "check the time" rather than anything else. I'm sure they'd organise it better and be more specific if they wanted to hear from you.
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 Wed 13 Nov 13 11:33 
 Reconfirming a flight - WillDeBeest
Is this 'reconfirm' in the old airline sense - something I don't think I've done in 20 years - or just a more general 'please check before you travel that we haven't fiddled with your departure times'? I thought formal reconfirmation disappeared long ago - and in any case only ever applied to onward or homeward flights after a stopover.
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 Wed 13 Nov 13 11:35 
 Reconfirming a flight - Mapmaker
>> Is this 'reconfirm' in the old airline sense - something I don't think I've done
>> in 20 years - or just a more general 'please check before you travel that
>> we haven't fiddled with your departure times'?

Thanks for summarising my OP so beautifully... ;)
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 Wed 13 Nov 13 11:53 
 Reconfirming a flight - WillDeBeest
}:---)

Was trying to avoid being dogmatic, but I believe formal reconfirmation is a thing of the past. You should be able to find out all you need with the 'manage my booking' button on the BA website (BA's smartphone app is useful too) and I've just looked and found something similar on AC's site. You'll need to check each separately unless the AC flight is on your BA ticket.
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 Wed 13 Nov 13 11:54 
 Reconfirming a flight - Manatee
I don't recall ever reconfirming a flight.

But I do check documents very carefully and check times near the date too. I had a kerfuffle a good few years ago on a family holiday when it transpired the tickets had the wrong flight number on them. Check in turned me away. At 6 in the morning I couldn't get hold of anybody. A nice lady at the Servisair desk crossed out the incorrect numbers and wrote the right ones on in biro, saying "that should be OK". It was. Pre 9/11 of course.

If you are checking in online with BA and Air Canada I'd take it that doing so will be all the confirmation needed.

Impossible to be certain sure - even if you call them and ask, you have no way of knowing if you get the made-up-on-the-spot call centre response. The fail safe approach would be to call the airline 72 hours before if you are worried.
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 Wed 13 Nov 13 12:00 
 Reconfirming a flight - Bromptonaut
I remember need to reconfirm back in seventies - at least for long haul. In those days tickets were often 'open' like a walk on rail ticket. Reconfirmation related to a booked reservation for space on a specific flight and served process of (a) controlling no shows and (b) ensuring passenger was briefed about any late changes.

These days I'm sure it can all be done on line - if necessary at all. Beware of timing changes though!!
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 Wed 13 Nov 13 12:01 
 Reconfirming a flight - rtj70
A couple of years ago we had a holiday to Tuscany. All booked well in advance using up unwanted Airmiles. Car hire vouchers never turned up and I chased a few times but they were not with the tickets. In the end told there wouldn't be a voucher.

Then a few weeks before travel another set of tickets turned up but again the book didn't contain anything car hire related.... so I ignored them as we'd now had 3 or 4 sets.

The day before travel someone happened to call to check if we knew our flight was going a few hours early! No I didn't. Turned out the 4th set of tickets had changed flight details but I'd not paid enough attention. So we didn't miss the flight but would have if the call hadn't been made!

My point is always check flight times close to time of travel. I know I do now.

On a related note to the OP's question, with online check-in and printing of your own boarding passes you can only usually check in a few weeks in advance. So if your return flight is more than that number weeks after you depart... you cannot checkin for the return flight and print boarding passes until after you're away! How many people necessarily have access to a printer when away?? I depends where you're staying (e.g. a hotel letting you use their computer/printer/Internet).
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 Wed 13 Nov 13 13:42 
 Reconfirming a flight - Roger.

>> On a related note to the OP's question, with online check-in and printing of your
>> own boarding passes you can only usually check in a few weeks in advance. So
>> if your return flight is more than that number weeks after you depart... you cannot
>> check in for the return flight and print boarding passes until after you're away! How many
>> people necessarily have access to a printer when away?? I depends where you're staying (e.g.
>> a hotel letting you use their computer/printer/Internet).
>>

When we lived in Spain we regularly lent our computer and printer facilities to neighbours needing both check-in and boarding pass production. We were first call in our urbanisation for that!
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 Wed 13 Nov 13 12:08 
 Reconfirming a flight - Mapmaker
Here's the answer from the travel agent:

"We advise all our passengers to contact the airline directly to reconfirm the flight schedule at least 72 hours prior to the flight departure. This avoids any inconvenience due to last minutes schedule changes."

Thanks, all. Glad it wasn't just my own failure at interpretation of the schedule. Glad also I'm not the one doing the flight.
Last edited by: Mapmaker on Wed 13 Nov 13 at 12:09
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 Wed 13 Nov 13 12:30 
 Reconfirming a flight - zookeeper
this may be of help

uk.flightaware.com/
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