Useful buying airline tickets direct from airline if on long-haul
On arrival at Townsville , Queensland airport we found that our flights to Sydney had been cancelled and replaced with flights later in the day. These changes meant that we would miss our Singapore Airlines flight back to London. However a phone call to their office in Sydney was sufficient to get us on a flight to London 24 hours later for a relatively low fee (as specified in the ticket t and c.) On checking in at Sydney my wife and I were given seats together despite the late booking. We were informed that for the Singapore/London leg of the flight we should present ourselves early at the boarding gate . This we did and SIA staff persuaded a solo flyer to swap seats so we could continue our journey seated together. We have been flying with Singapore Airlines for twenty years and have always enjoyed their excellent service. We purchased our tickets directly from Singapore Airlines hence our ability to change flights without involving a travel agent. Trying to re-book our flights through an agent in the UK at 1am was avoided.