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I booked a flight from Brussels Airport to Berlin on Friday April 15th. Because of the current situation at Brussels Airport, the airline has announced that most of its flights will instead fly from Lille airport until further notice. Confirmation of which airport is flown from will be given only 24 to 48 hours in advance. This is too short notice for me, and I do not wish to fly from Lille.

If I cancel the flight more than 48 hours in advance, are they legally obliged to give me a full refund? Even if the flight in the end does fly from Brussels Airport?

Here is part of the announcement from the airline's website. The way I understand this, the last two sentences definitely imply I am entitled to a full refund after they have contacted me (at most 48 hours in advance) to confirm the flight will be from Lille airport. But it is less clear what happens if I want to cancel without awaiting the confirmation. I would like to better understand what I am legally entitled to before contacting the airline.

[...] All other flights will continue to operate from Lille until further notice and we are communicating the plan to customers 24-48 hours in advance of their flights.

Customers who were booked on flights to or from Brussels from Basel, Berlin, Naples, Nice, Bordeaux, Milan Malpensa up to and including Wednesday 13th April will be transferred over to flights to or from Lille. [...]

We will communicate the plan to customers on flights from Thursday 14th April onwards 24-48 hours before their flight. [...]

We will be contacting all affected customers via SMS and Email on the contact details provided at the time of booking. Those who do not wish to travel can take a full refund or transfer to a different flight on the easyJet network. [...]

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  • Brussels is only open with limited capacity now, and even the airline might not know they will be able to operate until 24-48 hours before your flight. Commented Apr 8, 2016 at 22:00
  • I would call and ask. Commented Apr 8, 2016 at 22:27

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If you ask to cancel your flight before the airline notifies you, then it will be considered a voluntary cancellation on your part and subject to the full penalties described in the fare rules.

Once the airline has notified you that the flight is not available and a new flight has been reserved for you, then you have a period of 24 to 48 hours to accept the new flight or request a refund.

In this particular case, due to the situation which is out of both parties hands (you & the airline), a caring airline would allow you to change or cancel without penalty, but they are under no obligation to do so.

I would call and ask, maybe you get lucky or maybe they re-iterate what I just wrote.

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