dbj1000

And yet YMMV. I only fly BA when I have a choice, and have never had significant trouble with them. The only time they lost my bags I was compensated $500 right there at the airport.

AmerLisa

Well she got her bags back, and they delivered them as well. But doesn't excuse the very rude KLM employee in Amsterdam.... A young woman traveling alone with small children should be helped and not made to feel helpless. She really felt that if she said something back to this employee that she would have not got her on that flight and she would have been stranded in Amsterdam all day with small children....

scrubbedexpat091

Once up to the counter the guy checked her in (and her four large pieces of luggage - all under 50lbs) and told her the flight was very full - it was over sold! Why do they do that? Do they really think no one will show up for their flight? Or is there another reason?

People no show all the time for flights, and 99% of the time the airline is accurate and can get volunteers so one will generally not be invol. denied boarding.

I worked flights on flights with a capacity of 190, booked to 220 and leave with non-revenue passengers and empty seats.

In 5 years I only ever had to deny someone boarding once due to an overbooking, all other times there was either room, or they volunteered to take a later flight, but most of the time, enough no shows, so plane still had an empty seat or 2.

scrubbedexpat091

Continental will soon leave Sky Team and will join Star Alliance and link up with a partnership with United Airlines.

Effective October 25, 2009 Continental will no longer be in Star Alliance.

http://www.continental.com/web/en-US.../alliance.aspx



I have flown virtually every US airline and never had major issues on any of them, can't be all luck.

Jerseygirl

I find asking the offending person to write down their name, position and address of the company's head office helps.

Steerpike

Remember 'full fare' tickets are extremely expensive! The airlines are never going to do anything to stop people buying full-fare tickets. Tourists/etc flying discount are barely profitable.

But more importantly, as others have said - the airlines have this statistical model down pat and don't usually make a mistake. And if they do - they then ask for volunteers, and compensate them well. As a starving student, I volunteered to be 'bumped' on a flight from Toronto to London; I was put up in a fancy hotel (via limo ride) and given food vouchers; it was by far the most elaborate day of my entire visit to Canada (which was otherwise spent camping!).

Note that the subjects of this thread were not bumped ... it was only mentioned that they were over-booked. I don't recall anyone ever being bumped involuntarily - they literally keep improving the offer until someone volunteers ... one free ticket ... two free tickets ...

Folinskyinla

Hi:

In hindsight, nothing much

On flight to London, the 747-400 coming in from Heathrow was cancelled and they used a 747-200 -- and to reseat everybody took THREE HOURS due to different configuration.

Later flight to London during a Los Angeles heatwave -- they late people through international security 90 minutes late, and when you arrived at the gate, we were IMMEDIATELY boarded leaving the air-conditioned gate waiting area onto the plane -- which the ground air conditioning was NOT working -- kept in the sauna for an additional 60 minutes. It never occurred to them that they could have allowed us to wait in the boarding area. Once on the plane, you could not get off!

Return on that flight -- takeoff delayed when 1st class passanger got ill -- I don't blame them for that -- but then it took TWO HOURS to unload that guys luggage!

Trip to Germany uneventful -- trip back was a nightmare -- MY tickets were fine, my wife's were erased from the computer. Long discussions to board at Tegel, Heathrow and then EWR [American Airlines code share]. The ground people at Tegel, Heathrow, JFK [we landed at JFK and had a two day layover in NY] were totally unable to fix the future legs of her flight.

Wife took trip to Israel. The HRW-LAX flight was delayed six hours.

Moral -- four trips on BA and all four were screwed up.

AmerLisa

My MIL arrived a week in a half ago, she flew BA this time and has done a few times coming over.....this time she did have a few problems. When she checked in they couldn't find her name and then they found it boarded her on the plane and then after she was seated she had a few different people asking her if she was in the right seat. Found out that they had lost her again....

Jan Alaska

My son has been flying to the US for visits couple times a year for the last 7 years this year was a living nightmare, not only did he get detained by customs who were beyond rude (they called him a retarded moron because he couldnt read a form they wanted him to fill in, he has dyslexia) after being cleared he'd missed his flight, he said whenever he mentioned he had an onward flight they laughed and told him 'what a shame you've missed that'. He went to the NW/Delta check in desk to see if there was a possibility of getting on another flight and they had no record of him being on the London - Minneapolis stage !! Thank goodness hes a seasoned traveller now as he stood with his passes and argued the point, they eventually got him onto a flight the next afternoon. This meant staying at the airport overnight and spending huge amounts of money on food.

At the Anchorage end we were frantically trying to get someone to give us even a tiny slither of information now i know that hes over 18 so technically they wernt supposed to be handing out passenger details but i also happen to be the one who paid for his ticket on my credit card. In 3 seperate visits (yes we went home overrnight) we were told he'd be arriving on 3 different flights he was on none, he managed to get onto a Delta flight somewhere in between us driving the 100 miles round trip to the airport and home.
Kid says he probably wont visit again for a while as he doesnt want to go through that again.

Good luck with the NW/Delta nightmare

cindyabs

I'm between a rock and a hard place with Delta and Korean Air. Have a client flying from here to Japan, Japan to Tel Aviv and then back here, all biz class. One segment is actually flown on Korean Air, but the flight number is a Delta one, and it's ticketed that way. Delta says Korean has to give me the guy's seat assignment, Korean says Delta has to. I have been back and forth on this 6 times and it's ridiculous. They are supposed to be partners, yeah? Bushwa!

Poppy girl

So when are the Christmas flight deals to the UK coming out Cindy?

cindyabs

not yet, the sales are on for travel up to 26 October and have to be ticketed by Tues.

Manc

I had the same problem with One World when I flew ORD-MAN in April.

ticketted through BA but on an AA plane.

neither knew their arse from their elbow.

With regards Continental flying for Star Alliance, is there room for a 3rd US carrier in that network?

Poppy girl

Let us know

Poppy girl

http://airtravel.about.com/od/airlin...traxbest10.htm


No US airline even in the top 10