Should I travel via public transport during the England cricket team’s 2020 tour of Sri Lanka?

Q My partner has booked for us to go to Sri Lanka next March, which happens to coincide with the England cricket tour. Can the public transport be relied upon?

Andrew J

A March is an excellent time to be in Sri Lanka, and all the more so in 2020 when England are to play four cricket matches in the country. The venue for the first match (7-9 March), which is a warm-up against the SLC Board President’s XI, is in Katunayake – 15 miles north of Colombo and right next to the international airport. The next (12-15 March), against another President’s XI, is in Colombo. The first of two tests (19-23 March) is in the southern city of Galle; and the second and final test is back in Colombo, from 27 to 31 March.

The venues have one important virtue in common: they are all easily accessible by rail. I strongly recommend travelling by train in Sri Lanka. Rail travel on the island is a great way to meet local people. Services are fairly reliable, with several daily “expresses” on the 70-mile journey between Colombo and Galle taking just over two hours. Fares are ridiculously low, with second class on that journey costing under £1 (third class is available if you prefer not to pay more than 60p). Most importantly, rail is far safer than road in every developing country, and Sri Lanka is no exception; the Foreign Office warns: “Public buses are notorious for driving fast and rarely giving way.”

I imagine that you will be staying in one of the resorts on the southwest coast of Sri Lanka, such as Bentota or Hikkaduwa. They have local stations and you can just buy a ticket on the day for the train of your choice. Finally, you will know that more than 250 people, including tourists, were killed on Easter Sunday 2019 in terrorist attacks that targeted churches and hotels mainly in the capital. The Foreign Office currently warns: “Terrorists are very likely to try to carry out attacks in Sri Lanka. Attacks could be indiscriminate, including in places visited by foreigners.”

But I look forward to returning, and I urge others to do so rather than giving in to terrorists who want to wreck the economy and society. As the country rebuilds, tourists – and visiting sports teams – will be very warmly welcomed.

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Q Earlier this month I booked two flights via Skyscanner for American Airlines from Miami to Havana for 1 April 2020, at a reasonable rate of £80 each one way. Today I realised I had booked the wrong date, and it was meant to be 1 May. I called American Airlines and was told it would cost more to change the date, than to buy new tickets. I understand having to pay an administration charge, but as the flights are more than four months away, can the airline really do that?

Graham C

A I fear I am not going to offer much by way of consolation. Airlines can impose more or less whatever conditions they like upon cheaper tickets. What they generally like doing is offering the chance to change your flights but imposing a combination of charges. Effectively they let you use the value of your unwanted ticket towards a new ticket, with a couple of catches that are profitable for them.

If the new one costs less than the original, then you don’t get the difference back; but if it costs more then you pay extra. And on top of that there is an amendment fee. I was astonished to see that American Airlines’ charge for a “voluntary change to ticket before day of travel” is $200 for domestic travel and up to $750 for an international flight. Of course if the amendment fee is several times the cost of your original ticket, it is going to be cheaper to start again.

Perhaps if you had not booked a ticket so far in advance, the chance of a mistake would be lower. And given the tension between the US and Cuba, and the arbitrary rule changes that Donald Trump is fond of making, I would not recommend buying a Miami-Havana ticket months ahead.

While for some routes and dates it is certainly a good idea to commit well in advance, fares for a spring/early summer trip on the 70-minute hop from Florida to the Cuban capital are not going to rise significantly. Every day over the coming week I am seeing sub-£100 tickets on the route, and I imagine the same prices will prevail shortly before 1 May 2020. So I suggest you defer purchase until a week or two before you intend to travel.

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Q I have booked a transatlantic flight for August 2020. The airline has now said that there is no outbound flight on the day I was proposing to travel, and I need to go a day earlier. After a very long phone call I was offered £50 by way of compensation for the change. This will only make a small contribution towards the hotel cost on the extra night. I said that I had read (I think something you wrote) that airlines must find alternative flights on the same day, but the airline said its terms and conditions exempted it from this law.

Name withheld

A I am impressed that you managed to get some money out of the airline. Because you have been given (much) more than two weeks’ notice of the cancellation, you are not legally entitled to any cash compensation. But regrettably, as you surmise, the carrier has failed to comply with its obligation to provide you with a flight on the day you were supposed to travel. And, no, it cannot exempt itself.

Under Articles 5 and 8 of the European air passengers’ rights rules, a traveller whose flight from an EU airport is cancelled – however far in advance – is entitled to “rerouting, under comparable transport conditions, to their final destination at the earliest opportunity”. In other words, an alternative flight in the same class of travel as close as possible to the original timing.

The rules are interpreted by the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) to mean that if the airline cannot get you to your destination on the same day as originally booked, it must provide you with an alternative carrier (and cover the extra cost of getting you to a different UK airport if required). There is some wriggle room allowing the airline to offer an “almost as good” flight that will get you there at nearly the same time, but I don’t think this will apply in your case.

So have another conversation with the airline. If it refuses to do anything I suggest you say you will be raising a complaint with the CAA, which enforces the European regulations in the UK. Paying a rival for another flight will obviously cost the airline more than the £50 you were offered – so it may wish to raise its bid to persuade you to stay with its flights. The ultimate choice is yours.

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