If an airline changes the flight time or cancels a flight, will I find out through the system or does my customer hear about it first?

Yes, in most cases you will be told, but how quickly and how clearly depends on the airline and the supplier behind that booking. When an airline moves a flight time, changes the aircraft or cancels a service, it sends a message against your booking record. Where that message is passed on to us, the booking in your system is flagged so you can see that something has changed, and in many setups an alert or an email also goes out to your office.

The part we cannot promise is the timing. Some airlines send schedule changes months in advance and some send them only a day or two before travel. Low cost carriers in particular often notify the passenger directly using the contact details on the booking, which means your customer may hear about it before you do. For this reason we suggest you put your own agency contact details on the booking wherever the airline allows it, so the message reaches you first and you stay the one who explains it.

Acting on the change is a separate step from being told about it. Accepting a new time, moving the passenger to another flight or asking for a refund has to follow that airline's own rules, and some of those actions can be done from the booking screen while others need a request to the airline or the supplier. Whether a change counts as big enough to allow a free rebooking or a full refund is the airline's decision, not ours.

The safest habit is to look at your changed bookings every morning and call the affected customers the same day, and to check with us which alerts your plan sends out automatically so nothing sits unread.