MAN-ATL flight time changes

I have received notifications this morning that the MAN- ATL flight time is changed from 10.30 to 12.00 with effect from 1 November 2019. This meant one of my itineraries had a 10 min layover in ATL! I have spoken to Flying Club this morning to change the Delta flight to RSW, with no issues. The return flight from ATL to MAN has changed from 18.00 to 19.05 meaning a longer layover in ATL - Flying Club are saying that I would have to pay a change fee to get a later flight from RSW and it would no longer be a through ticket - is this correct?

I suggest anyone transiting through Atlanta from November onwards has a look at their itinerary!

[mitchja]

VS are correct as they will only rebook you for free if a flight schedule change causes you to end up with connection / lay-over which is less than 60mins.

There will always be a change fee if you are wanting a different departure time to reduce a longer connection / lay-over.

Looks like Virgin may be playing with the schedules for the MAN flights from November. I've had an email this morning advising that the VS75/76 flight times have changed for my November flights. 25mins later departure on the outbound & 35mins later coming home. Not a problem as direct flights so no connections to miss.

What is interesting is that I actually booked this flight via Air France (was notably cheaper than Virgin). The flight is ticketed by them (i.e. an 05... e-ticket, not a 932... Virgin ticket) & is on AF codeshare flight numbers. The itinerary change email came directly from Virgin, with the underlying Virgin booking reference on (i.e. not the AF one). If I log onto manage my booking, it all shows with the AF flight numbers & their booking reference. The Virgin email refers to the flights as VS75 & 76, not the AF codeshare numbers.

I thought that if you booked via a third party / travel agent, they are responsible for advising you of any schedule changes. Indeed if you want to change anything about your booking you have to deal with whoever you booked it through up until the day of departure when the flight gets released to airport control.

I appreciate that Virgin are [very] tied in with Delta & the joint venture with Air France & KLM will see them sharing a lot of information behind the scenes, but was surprised to get the email from Virgin. (Yes, I have linked my Flying Club number to the booking so it picks up my Trusted Traveler number for the USA).

Thanks for the heads up. We have not received any notification from VS re our flight on 3rd February and return on 30th March. This was booked direct with VS.
I have checked on line and our outbound is now 12.00 with a 10 min layover in ATL before our flight to RSW. Guess even with GE that would be tight!!!!
The return has also changed to 17.50 but luckily we had already booked an early flight from RSW so we still have a 2hour 21 min layover which should be enough if all on time. There is a highlighted note on the booking to telephone VS re the change. Nowhere near as convenient as means arrival at our hotel will now be around 10pm instead of 7.30pm.

They have also changed the Gla to MCO flight times in Novemebr. This is the second change they have made to the schedule since booking in January.

Now going out 1 hour later and coming back an hour later also than originally scheduled. Just hope they don't change things any further

Just checked our booking for 3rd February and there has been another change of both aircraft, from 747 to A333, and time. Again I have not received any notification from VS although it is booked through them. Interestingly they are also offering upgrades to Upper from PE which I assume is because of the additional seats on the A333. The 747s are great but I have found their lack of Upper class seats makes it difficult to use points for Upper so we will have to see now.

Although not ATL I got notified this morning my flight back from MIA on the 6th November has been pushed a couple hours forward. Although there is no complication with connections or anything we’ll just have between our families some seriously tired children.

I didn’t get an email from VS but I did get one from VHolidays advising of the change.

[mitchja]

Quite a few schedule changes seemed to take place yesterday from both VS and DL.

I got one for the VS7 / VS8 as well for Feb 2020 - no email (yet) but noticed my online booking telling me of the change.

Not much of a change for the VS7 (now departing LHR 09:40 instead of 09:35), however, the VS8 now departs LAX 15:00 instead of 16:45.

I've no connecting flights or trains booked yet so it has no impact on my plans but that change may effect some people.

I got a couple of DL flight time changes as well for FLL flights.

One good result of yesterday’s changes - I was able to reserve a seat from ATL to RSW. All seats were previously reserved, so it looks as though some people have lost their reservations.

We booked a return flight from LAX to MAN last year in August for this month (we're doing MAN - LAS on the outbound), and I think we've had a total of three schedule changes since then on that return. Two were just by an hour or so, but one changed it by a whole day! Luckily we're staying with very kind friends so it wasn't a big deal, but it does make our trip quite long. Our outbound was also brought forward by about an hour and a half, which caught me by surprise as I don't recall receiving an e-mail, and neither did our travel partners on a separate booking. Fortunately I could rearrange our pickup time. I try to be fairly sanguine about schedule changes, I know they happen, especially with a booking made so far in advance, but as we're fairly flexible (self employed) I do realise we're relatively fortunate in that regard, not everyone has the luxury of missing an extra day off work!

[mitchja]

I wonder if the LAX schedules for both VS MAN and LHR flights are been tweaked to fit with the now extended VA/VS partnership to allow better connections at LAX from/to VA flights?

Success also. Spoke to VS this morning and managed to upgrade to Upper from PE using points and paying cash for additional taxes. This option wasn't available before with the 747.