# Why can't I edit, move or cancel this booking?

> Bookings lock as they move through the day, and a few actions are narrower than they look. This page says which rule caught you and what to do instead.

Source: https://www.aerscheduler.com/docs/scheduling/why-cant-i-edit-move-or-cancel
Section: Scheduling and dispatch. For: Owners, Admins, Dispatchers, Instructors, Students, Renters, Technicians.

A booking locks in stages as the day goes on: once it has ramped out, once it has ramped in,
once it is invoiced, once its window has passed. A few actions are also narrower than the
buttons suggest. Find the symptom below.

**Who can do this:** Owners, Admins, Dispatchers, Instructors, Students, Renters, Technicians

## The Edit button has disappeared

**Edit reservation** is only offered while all three of these hold:

- the booking is not cancelled
- it has not ramped out
- its end time is still in the future

Miss any one and it is gone rather than greyed out, from the panel's … menu, from the
block's menu on the board, and from the booking's own page.

| Situation                               | What to do instead                                                                     |
| --------------------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| It has ramped out                       | Only the return time can still change. Drag the trailing edge of the block. See below. |
| Its window has passed and it never flew | Cancel it, with a reason. The record is what makes the cancellation report honest.     |
| It is cancelled                         | Book a new one. A cancelled booking is kept as a record and never reopened.            |

## The block will not drag

Dragging is blocked by the same rules plus one more, and the board tells you why **before** you
try: hover the block and the reason is in the tooltip.

| Tooltip                                                              | Why                                      |
| -------------------------------------------------------------------- | ---------------------------------------- |
| "This flight is invoiced"                                            | Its times are part of the bill.          |
| "The aircraft is back"                                               | Its times are part of its close-out now. |
| "This booking's window has already passed, and it never ramped out." | It is history.                           |
| "Only dispatch or someone rostered on this flight can move it."      | You are not on it and you are not staff. |

Two other things stop a drop rather than a drag:

- Dropping on the **Unassigned** or **Other** row at the foot of the day board is refused.
  Dragging cannot take a booking off its aircraft.
- Dropping on the wrong kind of resource is refused and says so, for example a ground booking
  needing a room rather than an aircraft.

![Calendar, day view, block being dragged](https://www.aerscheduler.com/docs/drag-callout-conflict.png)

> **Note:** If a block snaps back after a drop that looked clean, check your filters. A Resource or
> Location filter takes whole lanes off the board, and a clash with a booking in a lane you
> filtered away is invisible while you drag. The server still catches it and names what it hit.

Everything snaps to 15 minute marks, and a booking cannot be dragged shorter than 15 minutes.
Dragging one occurrence of a repeating booking moves only that occurrence, and the toast says
so.

## The aircraft is out and only the return time can change

Once a flight has ramped out, its start time, its aircraft and its crew are frozen. The one
thing still open is when it is due back.

On the web the Edit button is gone at this point, so the way to push the return time is on the
board: the block grows a single handle on its trailing edge, and dragging that changes the end
time. The tooltip says as much, but only on hover, which is why people miss it.

The iOS app will still let you edit the end time from the reservation screen.

## Cancel or edit is refused inside the school's lock window

"This booking starts in less than 24 hours, so you can't cancel it yourself…" (hours match
whatever the school set).

Your school turned on a **cancel and edit lock** under Booking preferences. Members cannot
cancel or edit once the start is inside that window. Front desk, instructors, and technicians
can still do it. If the school also set a late-cancel fee, members can cancel by agreeing to
the fee in the cancel dialog (web and iOS).

See [Booking rules and settings](https://www.aerscheduler.com/docs/scheduling/booking-rules-and-settings).

## Cancel says you are unauthorized

"You are unauthorized to make this request."

Cancelling turns on **who created the booking**, not who is flying it. The permitted set is the
creator, plus owners, admins, dispatchers and technicians.

> **Careful:** An instructor assigned to a booking somebody else created is shown a Cancel reservation button
> and gets this message when they press it. It is not something you did wrong. Ask the front
> desk or a technician to cancel it.

Same rule, seen from the other side: a student can cancel a lesson they booked themselves but
not the identical lesson the front desk booked for them.

## There is no Cancel button at all

On the web console, students and renters are never shown one, even on a booking they created
themselves, because the board cannot see who created a booking and errs on the side of hiding
the button.

Two ways round it: cancel from the AerScheduler iOS app, which can see it and does offer the
button, or ask the front desk.

## You can only take yourself off this booking

"You can only take yourself off this booking. Ask an instructor or the front desk to remove
someone else."

Editing a booking replaces the whole crew, so the server checks what actually changed. A
student or renter may add or remove **themselves** and nobody else. Staff, and the instructor
on the booking, can change anyone's seat.

This bites hardest on a group lesson, where a student trying to tidy the roster looks like
they are removing a classmate. It also surprises people because editing your own booking opens
the full dispatch form, with every picker on it, which looks like permission to reseat the
flight.

## The shares are frozen because it is invoiced

"This booking has already been invoiced, so the shares can't be changed. Void the invoices
first if they're wrong."

The Who pays what panel locks the moment the **first** invoice for the booking exists, and on a
split booking there is one invoice per payer. Fill the panel in after the aircraft is back and
before the last pilot signs off, because that sign-off is what raises the invoices. See
[Split a flight between two or more people](https://www.aerscheduler.com/docs/scheduling/split-a-booking-between-payers).

## The repeat cannot be changed

The Repeat control is offered when you create a booking and never when you edit one. Editing
an occurrence of a series is an ordinary edit of that one booking, and there is no way to
change the rule itself afterwards.

To change a cadence, cancel the series and book it again. Cancelling offers three scopes: this
booking only, this and all later bookings, or the whole series. Bookings that have already
started are never cancelled by any of them.

## A Hobbs reading needs correcting

Use **Correct times** on the reservation panel in the console, or **Correct times** on the
reservation screen in the app. Only the figures the booking already carries can be
corrected, and only once the aircraft is back.

> **Important:** Two things to know before you correct one.
>
> Correcting a reading after somebody has signed off **wipes every sign-off on the booking**, and
> everybody has to confirm with their PIN again.
>
> Once the flight has been billed, the reading is fixed while that bill stands, and you are told
> so rather than left guessing. Undo the bill and the correction opens again:
>
> - **Billed through Stripe.** Void the invoice. Billing, then Invoices, then the invoice, then
>   **Void and open close-out**, which takes you straight back to the booking.
> - **Charged to an account ledger.** Open the member, then Ledger, find the flight charge and
>   choose **Reverse**. The money goes back on their balance, the original charge stays on the
>   statement with the reversal beside it, and the flight becomes correctable. Once the crew
>   sign off again it bills from the new hours.

## The flight is already signed off

Use **Reopen to make a correction** on the reservation panel in the console, or **Reopen
close-out** in the app's actions menu. It clears the sign-offs so everybody confirms the
corrected numbers, and changes nothing else: the readings, the crew and the booked times all
stay as they are.

It is the same act **Correct times** performs on its own, offered separately for the case
where the numbers are right and the sign-off is not: the wrong person confirmed, or somebody
confirmed without looking.

Reopening is narrower than correcting, because a PIN is a signature. The school's staff, an
**admin** or the **front desk**, or the **instructor on that booking**, can reopen it. A pilot
cannot clear another pilot's confirmation. You are asked why, and the reason goes on the
flight's activity record with your name against it.

Correcting is limited the same way, but only when it would clear a signature that is not
yours. Your own is yours to redo: fix the reading on your own solo, then enter your PIN
again. A booking nobody signs off, a maintenance block or a discovery flight with no
instructor, has no signature to clear, so anybody who can close it out can correct it. What
needs staff or the booking's instructor is clearing **somebody else's** confirmation, so a
student cannot clear their instructor's.

## Things only the iOS app can do

Two of them, both small. The app can **edit the end time of a flight that has ramped out**,
where the console will not edit a ramped-out booking at all. And it shows cancelled bookings
in its reservations list, which the web board never draws.

## Related

- [Why was my booking refused?](https://www.aerscheduler.com/docs/scheduling/why-was-my-booking-refused): The other half: refusals when you are creating a booking.
- [Move a booking to a new time or aircraft](https://www.aerscheduler.com/docs/scheduling/reschedule-a-booking): The three ways a booking moves, when it can move at all.
- [Who can book, edit and cancel](https://www.aerscheduler.com/docs/scheduling/who-can-do-what-on-the-schedule): The permission rules behind every message on this page.