Handling overbooked flights

[muppet]

<snip>
Sounds like they came close to calling the feds.
</snip>

Puh-lease

JohnK had a contract that VA breached, without notice and without making reasonable efforts to remedy.

VA could have made choices that reduced the impact on JohnK but chose to maximise its own profit - until we have European style consumer protection this will continue.

FYI - nothing in the contract prevents JohnK being terse or rude to unhelpful staff and that fact that he was does not justify them failing to honour the contract VA breached.

 

[Hvr]

Puh-lease

JohnK had a contract that Qantas breached, without notice and without making reasonable efforts to remedy.

He was flying Virgin. Nothing to do with Qantas.

 

[muppet]

He was flying Virgin. Nothing to do with Qantas.

Yep realised that typo and corrected before your post, obviously not quick enough

 

[ozfflyer]

Puh-lease

JohnK had a contract that VA breached, without notice and without making reasonable efforts to remedy.

VA could have made choices that reduced the impact on JohnK but chose to maximise its own profit - until we have European style consumer protection this will continue.

FYI - nothing in the contract prevents JohnK being terse or rude to unhelpful staff and that fact that he was does not justify them failing to honour the contract VA breached.

YEP BE TERSE & RUDE. That'll work. Airlines especially in this awful recession, have to do everything to fill their aircraft. The solution would have been to check in long before he got to airport. Doesn't he have a phone ?

EU consumer protection does 2 things:-

1) make airlines take off even if not 100% sure the aircraft is ready
2) send airlines broke - how many airlines in EU have folded recently ? Too many & many more to follow

If an airline is going broke, the last thing they are going to pay is some dodgy EU fine. How long will the EU last without the Uk ? Germans are sick of paying for Greeks to lie around doing SFA.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

EU consumer protection does 2 things:-

1) make airlines take off even if not 100% sure the aircraft is ready
2) send airlines broke - how many airlines in EU have folded recently ? Too many & many more to follow

If an airline is going broke, the last thing they are going to pay is some dodgy EU fine. How long will the EU last without the Uk ? Germans are sick of paying for Greeks to lie around doing SFA.

I don't think there is any proof of point 1? That would be illegal.

There is no evidence that EU261 is sending airlines 'broke'. If they were able to maintain their schedules, there would be no penalty.

 

[blackcat20]

Puh-lease

JohnK had a contract that VA breached, without notice and without making reasonable efforts to remedy.

VA could have made choices that reduced the impact on JohnK but chose to maximise its own profit - until we have European style consumer protection this will continue.

FYI - nothing in the contract prevents JohnK being terse or rude to unhelpful staff and that fact that he was does not justify them failing to honour the contract VA breached.

They didn’t breach anything, the contract specifically states that flight times are not part of said contract.

 

[JohnK]

I'm not sure that anyone praised the current system however a few have tried to explain it.

So did the person who was on the cancelled flight. They have rights also.

Oh I understand how the current system works and after reading about overbooking flights on the VA e-ticket I understand it even better. And what happened to us on Sunday was wrong in more ways than one. I don't need to listen to popular opinion to make judgement. I had 2 seats on VA528 and the airline gave away 1 of my seats with very little thought.

The person that has had their flight cancelled has no right to displace another person with a confirmed ticket on another flight. And I should know as there isn't another person that comes close to the number of cancellations I've experienced in the past 11 years.

 

[serfty]

They didn’t breach anything, the contract specifically states that flight times are not part of said contract.

The contract states that, but such clauses are generally not enforceable in relation to "significant" delays due to consumer regulation.

In fact VA published policy for denied boarding is to compensate a passenger $50 for domestic flights when the passenger's departure delay is of more than two hours.

 

[ozfflyer]

I don't think there is any proof of point 1? That would be illegal.

There is no evidence that EU261 is sending airlines 'broke'. If they were able to maintain their schedules, there would be no penalty.

be realistic. Pressure can be applied to LAMEs to sign off on an aircraft, when not 100% sure, if fines involved. EU air traffic control is one huge congested mess in summer & in winter, weather comes into play.

 

[ozfflyer]

Oh I understand how the current system works and after reading about overbooking flights on the VA e-ticket I understand it even better. And what happened to us on Sunday was wrong in more ways than one. I don't need to listen to popular opinion to make judgement. I had 2 seats on VA528 and the airline gave away 1 of my seats with very little thought.

The person that has had their flight cancelled has no right to displace another person with a confirmed ticket on another flight. And I should know as there isn't another person that comes close to the number of cancellations I've experienced in the past 11 years.

so why didn't you check in early online ?

Having a confirmed booking is like saying have a confirmed upgrade. Only confirmed if you check in & similarly an upgrade request, is not an upgrade, it's a request.

 

[ozfflyer]

RULE 1
At airports, ALWAYS be nice to check in staff & service desk staff.

RULE 2
If not sure about rule 1, reread it, until you are sure.

Once missed a flight & had to go to service desk to try to get on next flight. Guy in front of me got really abusive to service desk staff & I told the idiot to calm down or I'd get the cops. He calmed down, then, not only did I get on very next flight, but got upgraded.

Check in staff, have a lot of power. A few keystrokes & you might not be going anywhere & your luggage could also go somewhere/anywhere.

 

[JohnK]

so why didn't you check in early online ?

Having a confirmed booking is like saying have a confirmed upgrade. Only confirmed if you check in & similarly an upgrade request, is not an upgrade, it's a request.

I prefer to check in at the airport. I had a confirmed booking on VA528. Money paid in advance, e-ticket with flight number in my inbox. As mentioned I didn't pay to go into a lottery for a seat on that flight.

I don't appreciate been stuffed around. This is not the first time. Weather is a poor excuse. But just keep telling me it's my fault and VA did nothing wrong.

 

[docjames]

Fascinating thread.

A summary:

Under the “contract” entered, VA had the “right” to change the flight carried / offload pax front he booked flight.

JohnK could have reduced the likelihood of the (undesired) non-checkin outcome occurring by using one of the checkin options well prior to T-65m at airport. He chose not to (assuming that it wouldn’t be an issue). JohnK could have reduced the likelihood of the tickets being erroneously separated by booking them together rather than separately (but chose not to - presumably as it was cheaper / other reasons such as late changes to travel plans for child).


After that, it’s arguing about whether the contract is “fair”, “enforceable”, “right” etc and the trade offs if changes are made to the laws around the “contract of carriage” / enforcement of such (similar to EU delay rules) - in the Australian context.


There’s a side discussion about VA’s systems and the child booking not being flagged / linked properly as such which may have contributed to the issue but is representative of VA’s IT issues (of which there’s a long and well documented thread) and doesn’t necessarily impact directly on the first two points. An earlier checkin would have avoided the issue irrespective of how the child was booked.


There’s a side discussion about “service recovery” but the difficulty there is anything other than travel on the booked flight was going to make JohnK unhappy, however “service recovery” would have left him with an acceptable (although not preferred) outcome - this eventually happened (travel direct to Brisvegas) however the process to get to that was less than ideal (from JohnK’s point of view).


Question for JohnK - will you travel Virgin again / will it change your booking and travel patterns with them?

 

[MEL_Traveller]

be realistic. Pressure can be applied to LAMEs to sign off on an aircraft, when not 100% sure, if fines involved. EU air traffic control is one huge congested mess in summer & in winter, weather comes into play.

Air traffic control is considered outside and airline’s control for the purposes of EU261.

Please provide any evidence that airlines are releasing potentially unsafe aircraft in order to avoid fines. As I said, this would be illegal as the dispatcher (and captain?) have a legal responsibility to ensure the aircraft is fit to fly.

 

[serfty]

Here's the Virgin Australia

In fact VA published policy for denied boarding is to compensate a passenger $50 for domestic flights when the passenger's departure delay is of more than two hours.

FWIW, here is the policy.

Guest compensation policy - customer service | Virgin Australia

You may be entitled to the assistance set out in this policy where you have a confirmed and/or ticketed reservation on a Virgin Australia flight and we need to make a change to your reservation before or on your day of travel.

www.virginaustralia.com

 

[maccaisking]

I would have tried to put the ball back in the airlines court. Tell them I will take my flight and can they please care for my daughter and ensure she arrives safe and sound in a few hours. Clearly they know you won’t, and you know that they won’t let you, but the perceived issues this creates for them may have forced their hand.

 

[Julesmac]

So a couple of questions, apologies if they are dumb. So are you saying that if you do OLCI when it opens, you are guaranteed to be on the flight? What if you do OLCI later, let's say in the taxi to the airport? Does that make you more likely to get bumped? Is there some magic cut off time and the airline bases their offload on last to check in first to be unloaded (which it seems was JohnK's experience)

I thought if the airline had passengers on standby, they would offer any unfilled seats to them, and how late in the boarding process are they offered? and I also thought if a flight is overbooked they would offer $$ for people to give up their seats for a later flight

Re the linked flights, perhaps o/s flights, if you used a travel agent, don't they have some system of linking the passengers so theres certainty you'll sit together.

 

[p--and--t]

While JonhK was sort of playing the airlines game by holding off on checking in in case he changed his mind and cancelled, and probably didn't help the situation by having a short fuse , I expect many passengers would go "WTF - so I'm on the flight and my daughter isn't - duh!".

VA stuffed this up - the FF numbers were clearly shown in the booking and both profiles had DOB.

If in the US, he or another volunteer most likely would have been offered a significant sum to catch another flight.

In the EU, I believe he would have got compensated multiple times the cost of the flight.

In AU, "suck it up son, not our problem"

Probably I'm wrong, but I thought VA's policy was nobody gets bumped until all passengers canvassed for a volunteer.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

So a couple of questions, apologies if they are dumb. So are you saying that if you do OLCI when it opens, you are guaranteed to be on the flight? What if you do OLCI later, let's say in the taxi to the airport? Does that make you more likely to get bumped? Is there some magic cut off time and the airline bases their offload on last to check in first to be unloaded (which it seems was JohnK's experience)

I thought if the airline had passengers on standby, they would offer any unfilled seats to them, and how late in the boarding process are they offered? and I also thought if a flight is overbooked they would offer $$ for people to give up their seats for a later flight

Re the linked flights, perhaps o/s flights, if you used a travel agent, don't they have some system of linking the passengers so theres certainty you'll sit together.

Re bolding #1 - checked in and holding a boarding pass is still no 'guarantee' of being on the flight. As per Virgin's denied boarding policy, you may be less likely to be bumped, but if the flight was elite (status) heavy, and you had no status, you might still be the person denied boarding.

Re bolding #2 - usually if you book people together they will be in the same booking and same reference. This makes the two pax appear together, rather than separately. But there's still no guarantee here.. if an airline has a 'paid seating' policy, other passenger may pay for the prime seats meaning you are separated. Most airlines however have policies that will sit one adult with any children in the party. But the other parent (and children) could be separated.

 

[woodborer]

The contract states that, but such clauses are generally not enforceable in relation to "significant" delays due to consumer regulation.

What is reasonable depends on the situation. As per the ACCC

Services such as flights come with automatic guarantees, including that services must be supplied within a reasonable time.

If something goes wrong, and your flight is delayed or cancelled, you may be entitled to a refund or replacement depending on the circumstances, including:

• the length of the delay
• the reason for the delay or cancellation
• whether the airline was able to place you on another flight within a reasonable time.

Note: what constitutes a reasonable time will depend on the circumstances and may not be the same each time you travel.
If the airline refuses to fix the problem or takes too long, you may be able to have the service provided by another airline and recover the costs of the replacement flight.