Alitalia overbooking and >6hr delay - help please?

the_red_baron

Hello all,

I'm not trying to spam, but there doesn't seem to be an alitalia thread and I dont want to post in the klm/air France thread.

I posted the info below in the general discussion thread but thought I might get a better response out here. I need to untangle what happened to me on thursday and figure out a plan of attack.

Booked flights from London LHR to Bari BRI (italy) through the KLM website. These flights were to be operated by Alitalia and were:

LHR-Milan Linate dep 0935 arr 1235
Linate-Bari dep 1435 arr 1605



Thursday morning we got to the front of the queue at check in to be told that we had been overbooked and would be put on a later flight to get to our final destination. We went to the alitalia ticket desk where we were booked onto our new flights:

LHR-Rome dep 1220 arr 1600
Rome-BRI dep 1725 arr 1830



The LHR-Rome flight was delayed in leaving, and with no-one to meet us at the gate in Rome (although other connections were met) we missed our connection and were booked onto a later flight to Bari:

Rome-BRI dep 2015 arr 2120



When we were given our boarding cards we were told that the flight would be leaving at 2100.

By this point we were a bit frazzled and I don't remember at what time we boarded, although flightstatsvtells me we landed at 2216


As I see it there are at least two elements to the claim:

1 - bumped off the first flight
2 - delay of more than 6 hours in reaching our final destination

Its worth noting that we were given food vouchers in LHR and Rome, and Alitalia LHR customer services invited us to fill out a claim form and fax (fax!!!!) it to Alitalia offices in UK or Italy. The very helpful Customer Service Team Leader in Rome couldnt believe it and phoned london in front of us to tell them that there is an electronic form on their website.







I'm looking for any help and guidance really, but for starters:

1 - is my delay claim on a flight of more than or less than 1500km, ie is it a delay on my journey (approx 1600km), or just the actual flight that was delayed (approx 370km)?

2 - how much of this claim is going to be standard amounts and how much will be discretion/negotiation

Cheers for the help!!

Al

richardw

Claim for denied boarding and
delay in excess of 3 hours