What to Do If Your Flight Is Cancelled During Your Gap Year

Some links in this post are affiliate links. This means if you purchase something through my links I may make a small commission at no extra charge to you. See my disclaimer.

Planning an entire gap year is stressful at the best of times, let alone when something completely outside your control goes wrong. Flights get delayed, connections are missed, and sometimes, flights are cancelled altogether.

Some of you may know that I’m an avid planner, and I thrive on being as organised as possible. So, when a flight itinerary suddenly changes, it can throw the rest of my plans into a spin, and I bet many of you feel the same way in similar situations.

The good news is that a flight disruption doesn’t necessarily have to derail your entire trip. Knowing what you should do, and what you may be entitled to, can make the situation much, much easier to handle.

Hopefully none of you run into this problem, but if you do, I hope this information can be put in your back pocket in case it happens in future.

Scenario: Your Flight Has Been Delayed or Cancelled

Imagine you are sitting at the airport, waiting for your flight. You have your hot chocolate in hand, reading a book or listening to music, just killing time before you are due to board. But the boarding groups never get called. You wait, and wait, and wait. There is something wrong, and the staff finally make an announcement:

“We are sorry to announce that boarding for our flight from London Heathrow and Hong Kong is delayed.We will update passengers as soon as we have more information. Thank you for your patience”.

Above is the paraphrasing of an announcement I heard while waiting for this exact flight. I was just getting ready to leave my home airport to go back to where I had been living on a gap year when I was delayed.

In this instance, we were delayed by 3 hours and 30 minutes.

My biggest concern at the time was whether I would make it to Hong Kong on time to catch my connecting flight to Bangkok, Thailand. Fortunately, I did, but only because that second flight was also delayed.

At the time, I didn’t know what rights I had as a passenger, and looking back, there were definitely several things I should have been doing while I waited to board.

Delays

If you are unsure what a delay is, it is when your flight is still expected to operate, but the departure or arrival time has been pushed back. Sometimes that means nothing more than reaching your hostel or accommodation a few hours later than planned.

In some cases it’s a bit harder to manage because even a short delay can sometimes cause a domino effect and cause you to miss a connecting flight, pre-booked transport (such as airport transfers), accommodation check-in periods or even the first day of a tour or excursion.

If you happen to be delayed in such a way that you do miss one or more things later on your trip, unfortunately this can cost you a lot of money (which is why travel insurance can often be a lifeline).

Cancellations

Cancellations are a little more frustrating because unlike a delay, your original booked flight is no longer happening. That means you not only have the stress of knowing you won’t arrive when planned, but you may also need to figure out an entirely new way of reaching your final destination. This isn’t so much of an issue if you are travelling a regularly flown route. However, if you were booked onto a flight route that only happens once or twice a week, you may be stranded for a few days until the next one.

This can cause huge issues for the rest of your gap year, due to missed connections, no-shows for tours and excursions, and each of these things, if not addressed quickly, can cause you to lose out on money. Sometimes thousands. This is often the biggest concern for backpackers and gap year makers on a long-term trip. Losing out on huge amounts of money can derail a trip completely and force you to change your plans.

What happens after a cancellation really depends on your specific travel route, the airline, the reason for the cancellation and any passenger rights legislation covering your exact journey. The airline may offer you a different flight, or a refund, but you should always try to find out exactly what they are offering before making alternative arrangements yourself. You may be able to save yourself some out-of-pocket costs.

But What Can You Do If You Experience Cancellations or Delays?

The good news is that there are some things you may be able to do if this happens to you. There is no guarantee you will get the desired outcome every time, but there are definitely some things in place that can help you.

Before any disruptions take place

Keep Your Boarding Pass, Booking Confirmation and Receipts!

It might seem obvious, but you would be surprised how many people delete their confirmation emails or throw away their boarding passes and receipts, believing they don’t need them anymore.

Think of airline tickets a little like retail receipts. If you ever need to request a refund or exchange a product after purchase, having proof of when and what you paid for makes the entire process much easier. Flights should be treated the same way.

A good rule to follow is:

Keep all confirmations, boarding passes, flight details and itineraries until after you have completed the journey (or trip), and only consider getting rid of them if the trip was completed without an issue.

By keeping all of your flight information, you put yourself in a much better position if something goes wrong later. We will come back to this in step 5.

Step One: Find out why your flight was delayed or cancelled

If you ever find yourself in this situation, you should always try to gather as much information about why the disruptions have happened, both for your own knowledge and to help work out if you’re entitled to anything.

Always try to:

• Ask airline staff what caused the disruption
• Take screenshots and timestamps of each flight status
• Save emails and notifications from the airline about the disruption
• Take photos of the flight gate screen and departure boards
• Keep notes of anything else relating to the flight that you deem useful

I like to live by the rule that it’s better to have too much information in the instance of an issue than not enough.

Why do you need to know all of this? Because not every disruption type qualifies for a refund or compensation. The more you know about why a flight was cancelled or delayed, the sooner you’ll understand if you’re due anything for the trouble.

Step Two: Check Whether You Could Be Owed Compensation

Once you actually know what has happened to your flight, the next thing to work out is whether you could be entitled to compensation.

This often confuses passengers because there are so many variables. These include your travel route, the airline, how long the disruption lasted and what actually caused the disruption in the first place. (This is why it’s important to keep a record of everything!)

One way to make this as easy as possible is to use the flight compensation checker from AirHelp. You input the details of your original booked flight that was affected, and it tells you whether you could be eligible for compensation and, if you are, it should give a rough estimate of what you could potentially be owed.

The checker is free online to use on the Airhelp website, and their customer support team can often assist with eligible claims where applicable, on a no-win, no-fee basis. That means you can check your flight first without committing straight to making a claim without understanding it all first.

Not Every Flight Disruption Qualifies for Compensation

One thing that is worth noting is that not every flight disruption will automatically qualify for compensation. Eligibility can depend on various factors, including how long the flight was delayed, where you were travelling from and to, the airline operating the flight, and, finally, what caused the disruption.

For example, under some European passenger-rights rules, a delay of 3+ hours may qualify for compensation, even though this is not a guaranteed rule every time or in every region. However, disruptions caused by what are known as extraordinary circumstances (and things outside of the airline’s control) may not.

So, what is the difference between something that is within the airline’s control and something that may be outside of it?

Potentially Inside Airline Control	Potentially Outside Airline Control
Routine maintenance of aircraft	Severe or dangerous weather
Combining flights with few passengers	Government mandates or restrictions
Staff shortages	Sudden airport closures or restrictions
Scheduling errors	Security threats and risks
Late cabin cleaning or fueling	Sudden emergencies (crew/passengers)
Slow baggage handling	Labour strikes affecting staff

This is by no means the entire extensive list, as the circumstances surrounding each disruption can be different. However, it should give you a better idea of why the reason behind your delay or cancellation matters when checking whether you may be entitled to compensation.

Step Three: Find Out What the Airline Is Offering You

Sometimes, when a flight is cancelled or delayed, travellers should try to speak to the airline before spending large amounts of their own money because, depending on the exact circumstances and passenger-rights rules, the airline may provide or arrange things such as:

• An alternative flight
• A full or partial refund
• Food or refreshments during the delay or cancellation period
• Accommodation for an overnight disruption
• Transport between the airport and accommodation

Airhelp actually recommends disrupted travellers speak to the airline and ask about food, drinks, transport and accommodation where necessary, and where cancellations take place, to ask about either an alternative flight you can be booked onto or to receive a refund.

Please don’t just panic-buy a new expensive flight during your gap year without first finding out what the airline is prepared to do for you.

You may be required to make your own arrangements in the end, but you should always check with the airline first, because otherwise you might be spending money you don’t need to spend.

Step Four: Protect The Rest Of Your Gap Year Bookings

Once you have confirmation from the airline that your flight is cancelled, or have a clearer picture of how long your delay will set you back, it’s time to protect the next 48 hours of your trip.

At this time, you should go through your itinerary to check:

• connecting flights
• hostel/hotel check-in
• airport transfers
• buses or trains
• tours and excursions
• language school or course start dates
• Workaway/Worldpackers/volunteering hosts
• car hire bookings

Essentially, you want to look at the next 2 days of your itinerary to make sure that your cancellation or delay doesn’t affect too much.

Where applicable, make sure to contact the company/person/provider of each in your list and inform them of the situation. If you fail to notify a hostel and don’t at least let them know you will be late or catching a new flight a day later, you run the risk of them cancelling the entire booking and labelling you as a no-show. By letting them know the situation and the new estimated time of arrival, you increase your chance of them working with you to accommodate the change.

Not every provider will be flexible, but in all my travels since 2015, I’ve only had one provider that was unwilling to assist with a schedule change. I’ll take those as pretty good odds!

Step Five: Keep All Receipts Since Disruption

If you remember back at the start of this article, I recommended keeping all of your receipts and boarding passes. Well, hopefully you did just that!

You should also make sure to keep all receipts for anything you need to spend money on during the wait period after confirmation of the disruption. In fact, Airhelp specifically advises passengers to retain all necessary receipts during this time in case you need to make a claim.

For example:

• Meals while waiting for your next flight
• Accommodation if you have to wait for a new flight the next day
• Taxis to and from accommodation
• Replacement transport if a new flight wasn’t offered or available
• Toiletries
• Other necessary expenses

Please note: You should NOT assume that you will definitely be reimbursed for every expense, but without the receipts you’ll have a much harder time proving what the disruption actually cost you. Keep everything!

Warning: Be Careful With What The Airline May Offer You

In some cases, an airline may offer passengers a seat on the next flight, vouchers to use on their airline, or nothing at all. It truly depends on the airline, and there is no “one-size-fits-all”.

Airhelp recommends not just accepting the very first thing the airline offers you and even suggests being careful in case they ask passengers to sign waivers or accept vouchers. There have been instances where the vouchers and your signature actually waive a passenger’s right to compensation, and many travellers are tired and frustrated and just want to accept whatever they are offered.

Of course you can if you want to, but if you’d like a chance to receive compensation if you happen to be eligible, it’s best to use the Airhelp checker before making any big decisions and accidentally putting yourself in a position where you legally can’t receive any.

Remember: I’m not suggesting you never accept vouchers if you’re offered. Just don’t “blindly” accept simply because you’re stressed.

Flight disruption checklist

Before Flying:

• Save confirmations and boarding passes
• Have your travel insurance readily available

When something goes wrong:

• Ask the airline what happened or what caused the disruption
• Save all messages and airline notifications
• Screenshot and timestamp each flight status
• Ask what the airline can provide
• Check all onward bookings and contact providers where necessary
• Keep all relevant receipts of spends made due to disruption

Afterwards:

• Check whether your flight could be eligible for compensation
• Use your saved documentation when making a claim