Flight delay, missed connection, 18 hour delay

akira181

I'm a little confused as to where my partner stands on this one, hope someone knowledgeable can help. She booked a flight from UK to Canada through a travel agent months ago. Her original itinerary had a 2 hour lay-over in Washington before the connecting flight.

She arrived at the airport today and was told there was a 1.5 hour delay to her flight and that she will definitely miss her connection in Washington since they cannot check her in from Edinburgh. 

So she spoke to the travel agent and they've sent through a revised itinerary. It now goes Washington > San Francisco > Canada.The WA > SF flight departs at 7am, currently scheduled to be 13 hours after she arrives in WA, assuming there are no more delays. SF > CA has an additional 5 hour lay over. As it stands, this delay has added 18 hours and an overnight in an airport to her journey. 

Currently I've told her to just speak to them in WA to see if they can fix her route to avoid such a delay as I don't know what other option she has.

I also need to check what her travel insurance policy states, to see if it does anything but currently what are her rights? Like, can she request the airline to provide hotel for the overnight in WA if they can't get her on a sooner flight?

Caz3121

Assuming this was all on one ticket she would probably have been better not getting rerouted by the travel agent in advance and leaving it up to the airline to sort out either at Edinburgh or once she arrived in Washington and had missed the onward flight (airline would have had control of the ticket from 24 hours before departure). As the reroute was not done by the airline I am not sure what assistance they will offer. Which airport in Canada is her destination?

Voyager2002

akira181 said:

 

I also need to check what her travel insurance policy states, to see if it does anything but currently what are her rights? Like, can she request the airline to provide hotel for the overnight in WA if they can't get her on a sooner flight?

An interesting question. Under UK law (based on EU law), if she is delayed in transport on a flight departing from the uk, or operated by an airline based in the UK or the EU, she has a right to "care" which would include a hotel. Under US law she has no such right.

If (as I suspect) the travel agent cobbled togethr a number of separate air tickets for her journey, rather than selling her one ticket for the entire journey, then she has no such rights.

Incidentally, two hours to transit a US ´gateway´airport is totally inadequate.

akira181

it was one booking but multiple tickets?  Not really sure what the deal is, I didn't speak to the agent and don't tend to use them. 

I'm pretty sure all her flights are with Air Canada, although the UK>US (and any subsequent inter-US flight) leg is serviced by United. 

She's flying to Edmonton.

Caz3121

It doesn't look like there are any direct flights between Washington and Edmonton so if on an Air Canada flight 2 hours after arrival then this was likely connecting in Vancouver as the only option that does not involve an overnight somewhere.
(Even if there was no delay on the inbound there was a likelihood than the onward flight would have been missed by the time immigration and customs completed)
Depending on the reason of the delay of the original flight from Edinburgh there be compensation due from United based on delayed arrival at final destination.

akira181

Yeah, there was another stopover in Vancouver like you said. 

I thought 2 hours for the connecting flight would have been tight, but she said the agent said it was ok, so left it at that (it wasn’t btw). I’ll probably be sending a complaint to the booking agent for offering such a stupid route.

Add to the mess, Air Canada cancelled the Vancouver > Edmonton flight from her original route, so apparently going via SF is the fastest way now.

The EDI > WA flight was from Air Canada, operated by United (who ofc also lost her bag) and the United Customer Service rep said that getting a hotel booked would need to be done by an Air Canada rep. As you'd expect from this journey, the Air Canada desk was closed.

That sounds wrong to me but United weren’t going to book a hotel and offered her a redeye flight to SF instead. She took that in case the planned 7am flight had some other bs delay.

So now she’s in SF, it’s around 2am there, has slightly over 13 hours to her Edmonton flight (United, operated by Air Canada), and naturally no customer service desk is open at that time. What an utter mess!

akira181

an update to the situation. 

After hanging about for for the customer service desk to open, they refused to arrange accommodation, refused the airport lounge as a compromise, fobbed her off about her baggage saying she needs to deal with it in Edmonton, and have done absolutely nothing in the way of compensation for getting every possible part of the trip wrong, and the "24/7 helpline" doesn't even ring. Not even an apology for an 18 hour delay.

As a kicker, travel insurance apparently doesn't cover flight delays despite it not being listed in the "Not Excluded" section of their Product Information Document.

She's now sleeping in a random chair and airport security are hassling her occasionally.

Any tips on where to begin complaining about this awful service considering the flights cost around £800?