Flydubai suspension costs SA travellers

A routine stopover in Dubai quickly turned into uncertainty for South African travellers as flights to Tel Aviv were cancelled without warning. 

The move by flydubai caught many off guard. With the final leg of their journey no longer going ahead, they were left scrambling to rebook, reroute their journeys, or find another way to reach Israel. 

Flydubai suspended all flights between Dubai and Tel Aviv following the 30 September security incident aboard flight FZ1073, in which one pilot stabbed another before he was restrained by passengers. 

The airline has said the suspension, imposed at the request of authorities, will remain in place until further notice while the incident is investigated. This has affected many travel plans. 

Michael Kransdorff, chairperson of the Jewish National Fund South Africa (JNF SA), explained that for its upcoming solidarity trip to Israel, five participants, including himself, had booked flights on Emirates to Dubai and a flight to Tel Aviv with flydubai. 

However, over yomtov, passengers were notified that their flight to Israel was cancelled and that they needed to make their own alternative arrangements. 

“Basically, Emirates is helping people to reroute via Cyprus and Rome and Athens, but there are no connecting flights now to Israel. So even though they’re offering the reroute option, it’s not possible because the flights are all full,” said Kransdorff. “The only other option is to cancel the ticket and rebook on another airline, which is exorbitant.” 

Steven and Linda Kantor are also going on the JNF SA solidarity trip and were some of the first to sign up for the trip. But then suddenly, they had to change their flights so that they could still go. 

“An email was sent to me stating that all flights from Dubai to Tel Aviv had been cancelled and asking us to make our own arrangements,” Steven said. “I then called Emirates and asked if they could assist us with an alternative flight, but unfortunately they couldn’t, so we had to look elsewhere. I went online and checked the Ethiopian Airlines schedule. There were very few seats available, but we managed to get onto a flight to Israel via Addis Ababa and return the same way.” 

Travel agent Yochee Katz explained that when things like this happen, passengers will need to find an alternative airline that is flying to Israel and pay for the new booking themselves, as they cannot be rerouted onto another carrier. They will receive a refund for their cancelled flight, with the exception of certain non-refundable taxes. 

“What else can we do? The airlines make the rules and we have to follow,” she said. 

Kransdorff said he needed to be in Israel for a JNF SA solidarity mission and had an important meeting with the chairman of KKL-JNF in Jerusalem on Monday morning. Unable to reroute his existing ticket, he planned to cancel it and book with another airline, potentially flying via Ethiopia or even France. He hoped travel insurance would cover the additional cost but was not optimistic. 

“Because it’s so late, it makes things much more difficult. When I spoke to them on the phone, I was told that passengers had been notified on Friday, but I wasn’t. It would have been much better if I had known then because I could have rebooked when prices were still a bit lower. Now, at such short notice, it’s really not good,” he said. 

Kransdorff rebooked his flight with Ethiopian Airlines, but since it was so close to departure, he had to pay almost double the price of his initial ticket. 

“The problem in these situations is that when we first heard about the tour, we booked early and therefore got a much better rate. But because we suddenly had to make alternative arrangements at very short notice, prices had increased substantially. We ended up paying approximately R8 000 more for essentially the same journey,” said Kantor.