Air New Zealand [Diverted to MEL, Self paid to SYD - reimbursement?]

[straitman]

The diversion is not ANZ fault. What is their fault is not getting people on planes to Sydney quick enough. They would be looking for the cheapest option and taking their time. The passenger who booked his own flight because ANZ was inefficient definitely needs compensation from ANZ.

Hi Corny44,

Without knowing a lot more of the timeline that is a tough call to make. NZ would not be looking for the cheapest option as they would have procedures in place with carriers already. What they might be doing though is looking for enough seats to solve the problem and that could take time.

(Maybe you could post a self introduction here.)

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Re: Air New Zealand

This is the standard airline response and they won't budge! Interesting that in their conditions of carriage is the clause that they won't guarantee you a seat on the flight or the ETD/ETA. So what are you paying for? Claim on your travel insurance if you have any, you will have to pay the excess. Having said that, it is poor customer service and the airline needs to buck up! Chalk it up to experience, consider another airline in future! I had a similar experience last year with Jetstar and LAN Airlines, as well as ANZ in 1987!

This raises a whole bunch of legal theory around airline tickets, and a which point a contract is actually formed.

I think the most recent Australian decision on this was to do with GST, and the court ruled something along the lines that a ticket is an 'undertaking' to provide a 'future service' (or words to that effect).

Under ordinary contract law, there is quite a bit of theory to say that your 'contract' doesn't actually form until either (a) check-in or (b) once you actually take a seat on the plane. Until then, what you have would ordinarily be considered too vague to form a contract (exactly along the lines of 'we don't guarantee flight times, that you will even have a seat on the plane, we don't guarantee stopping places or that we won't have schedule and equipment' etc etc).

Probably the preferred view from the above camps is that a 'firm' contract is formed at the point of check-in. At that stage, the airline becomes responsible for you for matters within its control (including, for example, to provide hotels and meals if there are lengthy delays).

But of course these things rarely come to court as airlines don't want passengers setting precedent. The EU and USA have side-stepped most of the legalities of contract by introducing consumer protection laws.

Can flight times be made part of the contract at the time of purchase? potentially yes, but it could likely only be achieved by direct communication between the airline and the passenger. With appropriate acceptance by the airline that they were forming a binding contract. Likely to happen? Certainly not intentionally by the airline in the case of ordinary passengers. And of course you'd be up for all the call centre fees for the airline to make the booking for you.

 

[ginger01]

Hi straitman - I think you've nailed it! To find, say 200 plus seats at short notice would be a hard ask, no doubt they wanted to do it in one go?

 

[Bunty]

Coincidentally, I was also flying the same day and my Virgin flight to Sydney was diverted to Canberra due to a weather related closure in Sydney. Virgin very quickly arranged Coaches to Sydney for those who wanted to get back to Sydney on the same day (albeit very late on Sunday night), but I was among around 25 to 30 people who stood in line at Canberra airport for around 1 hour before being sent to a hotel and meal for the evening and rebooked on a Virgin flight the following morning.

Whilst waiting, I was told Virgin was under no obligation to accommodate passengers due diversions that arise from weather related incidents (an act of god). However, somewhat fortuitously, my flight had been delayed on take-off due to a mechanical issue, which triggered the compensation.

Interestingly, I'm told the Coaches were sent to Sydney airport directly (without stopping for refreshments on the way) and arrived at just before midnight (curfew in operation).

 

[bat21]

Re: Air New Zealand

Can I ask, what website is this screen dump from?

 

[GRTMan]

Just recently (7 December 2014) I have had problems with Air New Zealand

I was a business class passenger on a flight from Auckland to Sydney that was diverted to Melbourne landing around 6.30pm

Following the instructions given by Air NZ staff and I cleared immigration and customs and went to a designated desk in the terminal.
It was virtually impossible to get anywhere near the desk, I did not see anyone communicate with customers, let alone take ownership of what was happening.

After over 45 minutes of waiting and not even a communication I ended up ringing Virgin Australia and with their help and my credit card I was able to get on a flight to Sydney that evening.

I have finally been able to contact someone at Air NZ and seek explanations about what had happened and ask for compensation. I received the Air New Zealand customer service rhetoric - thank you for bringing it to our attention, our managing director has taken a personal interest in this matter, we will look into it and use the learning to improve.

Air NZ confirmed to me their policy on this matter - they do not compensate people who organise their own flights after a diversion to another airport and I should contact my travel insurer and make a claim against my travel insurance. To add insult to injury Air NZ emailed me a letter confirming the diversion to Melbourne.

My understanding is - had I stayed in the crowd at Melbourne I would have been put up in a hotel and taken a flight to Sydney the next day at Air New Zealand's cost. I would have also been in a lot of trouble with my employer!

If I do make a claim against my travel insurer I risk having a claims experience problem with a travel insurer which will mean higher premiums going forwards and there is no guarantee they will payout against the claim. Air New Zealand also assume I have travel insurance but neglect to note most travel insurance has an excess which has to be paid by the insured. I do not believe this is a win win solution to the problem. This is a we win you lose solution!

Frankly I am insulted by the response.

Has Air New Zealand lost its way?

You took a reasonable action. I'd say Air New Zealand should reimburse you, and apologise for the extra delay and work. Based on your report, I'll try to avoid ANZ. That in the end is how the learn customer service.

 

[schlaffa]

I had a somewhat similar issue with NZ, although it was complicated by a delayed flight operated by a partner. We had booked JFK-SFO-AKL-CNS with JFK-SFO on VX and the rest on NZ. The connection at SFO was tight but still slightly above the published MCT. Due to weather impacting on inbound a/c into JFK, the VX flight was delayed out of JFK by around 2 hours so we knew before departure that we would miss the connection. Gate staff were kind enough to page pax connecting to AKL (remember this is VX staff) but all they could tell us was to talk to ground staff at SFO for arrangements and that VX would not pay for any hotels in SFO because the delay was due to weather. I got on the phone to NZ however they refused to look into alternative arrangements (such as UA) and that any changes before we had actually missed out connection would incur change fees + fare difference. At SFO there was a long line and only one poor bugger from VX. He eventually put me on the phone with someone from NZ. They told us that the following days SFO-AKL flight was full and that they would put us on SFO-LAX with VX (in F), then on LAX-AKL with NZ but then we would have to wait 2 days for the next AKL-CNS. They also offered assistance in finding a hotel in SFO but would not pay. By this point I was not so concerned about the hotel but rather getting to CNS 3 days late when we were only planned to be there for 3 days. I told NZ that this was not acceptable and that they should find alternative routing for us. They told us that they could not book us on VA within Aus but I insisted since most of those flights are NZ codeshares. After a bit of arguing they finally booked us on AKL-BNE on NZ and then BNE-CNS on VA. So it ended up being JFK-SFO-LAX-AKL-BNE-CNS and about 60 hours of travel. We missed one night's accommodation in CNS which was planned at a fairly pricey resort but in their kindness they agreed to only charge us 50% for the first night when they could have held the whole rate for the first night.

When I returned I wrote to NZ to complain and ask for compensation for the hotel (which was only about $100, so not worth claiming on travel insurance anyway), not even trying to recoup the 50% of lost first night. Given that I used to work in the NZ ops center and worked on the same floor as the people who receive these complaints I thought there was a good chance for fair treatment. They responded and basically insisted that they were under no obligation to rebook me on VA in the first place ("When rebooking passengers we must still adhere to the permitted routing and application of the applicable fares used for travel.") which seems to conflict with the terms of carriage posted previously in the thread. They refused to pay for the hotel in SFO and said it was a matter for the operating carrier. I responded and said something along the lines that if you sell itineraries from NYC then you should be prepared to support them with robust schedules or otherwise to take care of your passengers.

What have I learnt from this? Never book a longhaul itinerary where the operating carrier of the first sector is not the selling carrier. If you must then consider your plans on the following day and try to make them flexible. Being someone professionally involved in airline planning, while the itinerary was a very efficient one for travel from NYC to Cairns (and considering we were stopping over at AKL on the way back) it was not robust due to the short connection time, use of another operating carrier and because AKL-CNS was not daily. I just wish that NZ would have dealt with this a little better.

 

[ginger01]

Unfortunately airlines as you well know have shocking customer service, should be called dis-service! Profit before passengers! Qantas, on the other hand, seems to have okay service.

 

[lovestotravel]

Re: Air New Zealand

A remedy was offered and the customer didn't want to wait in line, they then chose to pay for flights out of their own pocket.

I look forward to NZ crediting you back for the flights, since you have made it clear you didn't want to wait in a queue of people

So 10 weeks later....

Did you get the credit..........................