Advice needed: Bounced by Delta Airlines

mickrory

Six of us are Las Vegas bound for the Superbowl 50 weekend on 4 Feb. We are flying Virgin/Delta from Manchester to Las Vegas via Atlanta. this was booked back in July15.
I have now received the e tickets and notice our flight from Atlanta to Vegas has been changed from 16.20 to 19.16 which means instead of arriving at 18.00 we arrive at 21.00. Delta have a flight at 16.32 with 20 odd seats still available.
I've phoned Delta and Virgin but they've both passed the buck back to the travel agent who I booked with. The TA response is they have to recalculate the whole trip so if we want to change flights (remember I never asked to be changed in the first place) we have to pay an additional £420 plus tax as the hotel price has rocketed.
So we either pay up or bite the bullet and stay stuck in Atlanta airport for 4.5 hours waiting for the plane they have bumped us onto.
I have complained the the TA to no avail. Is there anything I can do about it or as consumers do we just have to accept that airlines and travel agents can legally extort hundreds of pounds extra for original tickets that were purchased in good faith?
Bitter pill to swallow.

Caz3121

Can you confirm your exact flight numbers
You mention MAN-ATL-LAS 4th February and you mention a Delta 14:32 flight from ATL-LAS

The flight from MAN-ATL arrives at 14:45 so I am not sure how you could originally have been on a connection at 14:20
Delta do not have a 14:32 flight, they have a 16:32 flight
They also do not have a 17:16 flight, they have a 7:16pm flight which is 19:16
arriving at 14:45 you are unlikely have sufficient time to go through immigration, collect your bags and drop them off again then get to new gate - unless you have US passports and Global Entry, you should aim for 3 hours for connection so under 2 hours is unlikely to work....how frustrated would you be if you paid that money to change and then missed the flight, with a special weekend, oversold flights and a number of you, it could take some time before there are spare seats on an alternate flight the longer connection gives you a much better chance of making it to LAS that night

richardw

Did you book a flight+hotel deal with the TA?

jpsartre

mickrory wrote: »

So we either pay up or bite the bullet and stay stuck in Atlanta airport for 4.5 hours waiting for the plane they have bumped us onto.

You won't be stuck for 4.5 hours as you need to clear immigrations and customs and then reclear security. If your times are correct you want a connection of just 90 minutes which is very short and may well cause a misconnect and a much longer layover at ATL since there's no guarantee there will be enough seats of the next flight for all of you. Even if I could I wouldn't change the connection time in your case.

All that said, had you booked direct with the airline rather than through an agent you probably could have gotten the change made without problem. A reason to avoid putting a middleman between yourself and the airline in the future.

shaun_from_Africa

jpsartre wrote: »

You won't be stuck for 4.5 hours as you need to clear immigrations and customs and then reclear security.

To follow on from the comment above.
I've flown into Atlanta 4 times and it can easily take 2 to 3 hours to get through immigration and customs then back through security to catch an onward flight.

Atlanta is the worlds busiest airport (and has been for the past 15 years) and the queues to get through immigration sometimes have to be seen to be believed. (and take some ear plugs as the noise is also pretty unbelievable with thousands of people talking/shouting and plenty of crying and screaming kids).
The airport itself is huge and although transiting from one terminal to another is easy due to the train system they have there, it can still take an awfully long time.

Lenny285

Personally I would be grateful to whoever has taken the decision to bounce your party to the later flight.

Whilst in theory it is possible to transit through international arrivals to domestic departures at Atlanta in say 90 minutes in practice it can take much longer as there are so many variables to consider and as such I would always allow a minimum 3/4 hour layover.

Will your flight from MAN arrive on time?
Has the gate been prepared for the aircrafts arrival?
Do the crew deplane swiftly?
Which gate number are you deplaned at? You may have a longish walk!
Can you proceed through immigration quickly? Queues can vary hugely - could take 10minutes but equally it could take 80 at the time of the afternoon you are scheduled to arrive due to the large number of transatlantic arrivals.
Is your baggage waiting for you on the carousels in reclaim or will you have to wait?
How busy is the customs hall? Again it can be quick but then again you may be in for a long wait due to volume of passengers.
How quickly can you find the correct bag drop for your checked luggage?
How busy is security? Can be yet another choke point.


All these add up before you have even located the plane train,changed terminals and located the gate for your connecting domestic flight and arrived there at least 15minutes before your scheduled departure slot.


Atlanta airport is HUGE,busy and stressful at the best of times - you really do not need the added pressure of a short amount of time to transit.Far,far better to have the longer layover and reduce the risk of missing your connection.

balletshoes

mickrory have you flown that route before?
In my experience with indirect US flights from the UK, a connection time of 4.5 hours would be preferable to only 90 minutes - I don't think I was even through immigration in 90 minutes when we landed in the US from our transatlantic flight :cool:. Then you have bag drop, then through security to your next flight if you have to change terminal.

mickrory

Thanks Guys. We've never travelled via Atlanta before. After reading the responses it looks like Delta have bumped us because generally a couple of hours is not long enough to clear immigration.

We'll stick with the revised schedule, I wasn't going to part with another £400+ anyway. At least we won't be fretting if the Immigration queue takes a couple of hours but the way my luck is going lately we'll more than likely get through in half an hour.

Last year we came in via Chicago and got through in 10 minutes which was amazing.

peachyprice

I have a suspicion your travel agent booked your original flights with an inadequate connection time and Delta have corrected their error.

shaun_from_Africa

mickrory wrote: »

We'll stick with the revised schedule, I wasn't going to part with another £400+ anyway. At least we won't be fretting if the Immigration queue takes a couple of hours but the way my luck is going lately we'll more than likely get through in half an hour.

Good decision.
It would better to find yourselves having a few beers in Atlanta waiting for your next flight rather than cutting it a bit too fine and getting to the departure gate 5 minutes late.

Do you have another flight booked from Las Vegas to Santa Clara or are you driving across?

jackieblack

shaun_from_Africa wrote: »

Do you have another flight booked from Las Vegas to Santa Clara or are you driving across?

I was wondering why OP was flying into LAS if not taking another connecting flight.
Surely SFO would have been easier/the closest major/transatlantic arrival airport?