Level Airline loses Half their Fleet Overnight
Level is a new low cost carrier operating our of Barcelona with destinations in the US, Caribbean, and South America. Currently they’re flying to Oakland, Los Angeles, Buenos Aires, and Punta Cana and they’re doing this on a very tight airplane budget. Just two A330’s are flying the routes… and last night, one broke down.
The airline launched earlier this year with a lot of fanfare. The Spanish airline initiated their low cost service between the USA and Spain, starting at only $149 each way. It was a steal, and they sold over 50,000 in the first few days. Even American Airlines started codesharing with them on certain routes.
Level Airline from IAG website
It wasn’t without its hiccups though, as for quite some time tickets weren’t pricing correctly and information about the extra fees was hard to find online.
It was a very ambitious goal to do all these routes with only 2 airplanes. Yes, there are more on order, but trying to start a global airline with long haul flights over 10 hours doesn’t allow a lot of room for error.
Level Airline Fare Breakdown
Enter… error
Apparently one of the new planes had some mechanical issues and has been in the USA (Salt Lake City in fact) getting repaired. It was supposed to take off tonight from Buenos Aires to go back to Barcelona, but there was no plane… so what’s a new company to do in times of trouble? Call their older cousin to help.
Iberia managed to cancel (or reposition) a flight from Caracas and come to save the day. The interesting thing about this flight is that it’s got business class, along with premium economy and less coach seats. I have a feeling, unless the flight wasn’t full, that some people are going to be upgraded and others will miss their flight.
What to do?
Let’s assume this was to happen to you, and you’re booked on a low cost carrier. What do you do? Do you have any rights? The short answer is, it depends. A lot of times, the airlines are required to get you to your final destination as soon as possible, but then again if they don’t have extra planes, how are they going to do that?
Whenever we buy our tickets, we make sure to use a card that has Travel Insurance and Trip Delay protections. In the past, I’ve been able to get the credit card to reimburse me for weather related delays that the airline said was out of their control, just because the credit card insurance kicked in. You can find many of them under the travel credit card section below.
Have you been stranded before? What did the airline do for you?
August 6, 2017
FEWER coach seats. Jeesh!