Missed business trip, being made to pay replacement flights

pinkshoes

Unless it is written in his contract that they can make deductions for missed flights, then i am quite sure they cannot do this, as if he is on the minimum wage, this would put him under the legal minimum.

I used to fly a lot for work, and would often aim to arrive 20 mins before check in closed, particularly for very early flights when there was no traffic. This is normal.

The car breaking down is a red herring, so not point saying he didn't leave enough time, as 2 hours wouldn't have even been enough for a break down.

kerri_gt

pinkshoes you've just echoed my thoughts, he may / may not have missed his flight because of the time he left, but the fact is he missed his flight because his car broke down.

The response time of breakdown companies varies immensely - even if he'd left the suggest 1hr for a domestic departure, he could easily have missed his flight due to breakdown.

Surely his company provide travel insurance for business travel under which this would be covered I would think, perhaps there might be an excess to pay which I guess his boss could ask for (personally I would think this harsh).

From the impression you give of the company, if I was you're friend I'd be looking for a job elsewhere.

silverwhistle

I noticed this post the other day and wondered what might happen.

Are there good prospects with this job? Minimum wage, expected to fly on business trips, we're not sure whether overtime is paid (to bring them under NMW) leaving aside work dropped on them at the last minute, and can we presume the car that broke down was not a company car? Were they getting a decent mileage rate for it so they could add the additional insurance needed for business use? I wouldn't run a car on minimum wage and would have had to claim for a taxi to the airport at that time of day.

Useful for the CV, but the learning experience I would take from this is not to let employers take the p***.

bll78

With the '20 minutes to spare is not enough' argument everyone keeps throwing up surely the issue here is the employer kept him at work until midnight. When was he meant to set off? Straight from work with no sleep? What if he'd crashed from tiredness? I'm not sure how far away he lives from the airport but you'd have to assume at best he's managed 3 hours sleep after travel home, getting up driving to airport and leaving 20 minutes to spare, at worst he's had no sleep.

I have worked some long hours with little rest to meet deadlines, but I'm with silverwhistle on this one, the employer seems to want an awful lot for NMW. If I were him I'd be looking for another job.