Travel question: My flight has been moved by one day, can I claim compensation?

Q In March we booked flights on Ryanair from Salzburg to Stansted for Sunday 11 August. This has now been changed to the day before, which is causing us all kinds of issues. For example, it could involve taking a long-distance taxi to make the Saturday flight which is at 10.45am.

I have never come across this problem. Is it common? Am I entitled to any compensation?

Fred S

A Schedule changes are a fairly frequent occurrence as airlines fine-tune their timetables: my Ryanair flight from Cologne to Sofia in July has just been moved three hours later, and I now arrive in the Bulgarian capital at an unpalatable 1am.

But your case is different. The flight has not been moved forward (or “pre-poned”, to use the handy Indian term). Instead, all the Sunday departures between Salzburg and Stansted have been cancelled all the way from July to the end of October, reducing the five-a-week schedule to four.

Ryanair has been affected by the grounding of the Boeing 737 Max following two fatal crashes. It was due to start flying the jet this month. As a result of the fleet problems, it is shuffling its schedules and, on some routes, thinning out the timetables.

European air passengers’ rights rules permit any airline to cancel flights without compensation up to two weeks before departure, but stipulate that they must offer suitable alternatives – if necessary, buying a flight on another airline for you.

Unfortunately, the only other airline flying between Salzburg and London this summer is British Airways, which does not have a Sunday flight.

You could ask to be rebooked on the easyJet flight from nearby Munich to Stansted on the Sunday afternoon, but the present interpretation of those passengers’ rights rules suggest you would not have much luck in persuading Ryanair of your entitlement.

In terms of the taxi/train option: I can see plenty of trains arriving at Salzburg’s main station at around 9am on Saturday morning, from locations such as Linz, Innsbruck and Zell-am-See. The excellent Austrian public transport system means there are most likely to be bus connections to these trains. And with Salzburg airport just a couple of miles from the city, there should be no problem making a 10.45am flight.

Every day our travel correspondent Simon Calder tackles a reader’s question. Just email yours to s@hols.tv or tweet @simoncalder