Flight changed - short stopover time at Seoul Incheon airport

patsydecline

My partner and I booked on flights to Auckland to arrive on Xmas morning flying via South Korea Incheon airport on Korean Air.  They have now notified us that the first plane is arriving later (was 2 hour stopover, now half an hour).  The flight number and aeroplane model haven't changed but the arrival time has. I am understandably nervous about the half hour time scale given that the flight is time sensitive (the purpose is to be there for Christmas although obviously it isn't the end of the world if we arrive on Boxing Day).  Flights to NZ are really, really expensive so we don't really want to rebook for hundreds more so would be great if anyone had any experience changing planes at Incheon and can say if half an hour is enough.  Do you think they are just covering their !!!!!! with the new arrival time?  Sadly am probably going to be worrying about this for 5 months!  Return flight time has also changed but that's less of a problem I think.

eskbanker

https://www.koreanair.com/contents/plan-your-travel/at-the-airport/boarding-procedure/transfer states that the minimum connecting time between their international flights there is 45 minutes, so perhaps worth asking the airline exactly how they believe that this wouldn't apply to your revised itinerary?  Did you book directly with the airline on a single ticket reference?

bagand96

Have you spoken to Korean Air? 30 minutes may not even be a valid connection. A quick Google says that Incheon Airport is very good for connections, but 30 mins sounds very tight.

Do they sell your new itinerary if you try to book as a new customer today? If they don't that's an indication the connection isn't valid.

If it isn't valid they should rebook you. 

patsydecline

eskbanker said:

https://www.koreanair.com/contents/plan-your-travel/at-the-airport/boarding-procedure/transfer states that the minimum connecting time between their international flights there is 45 minutes, so perhaps worth asking the airline exactly how they believe that this wouldn't apply to your revised itinerary?  Did you book directly with the airline on a single ticket reference?

Yes, booked directly on a single ticket.

patsydecline

bagand96 said:

Have you spoken to Korean Air? 30 minutes may not even be a valid connection. A quick Google says that Incheon Airport is very good for connections, but 30 mins sounds very tight.

Do they sell your new itinerary if you try to book as a new customer today? If they don't that's an indication the connection isn't valid.

If it isn't valid they should rebook you. 

I can't see it as a new itinerary so we probably need to contact them thanks and hopefully can rebook.  I am fine to have a longer stopover if that's safer!

SW17

Airlines cannot sell a connection on a single ticket that falls below the agreed Minimum Connecting Time (MCT). When a schedule change brings a connection below MCT, they are obliged to rebook passengers to a legitimate connection. MCT at ICN for international to international connections varies depending on the exact combination of flights, but it never goes below 45 mins, so at 30 mins KE will have no choice but to rebook you. 

Airline processes for handling such rebookings vary, some are quicker than others, some manual and some automated. When the alternative is done by the system, it often may not be the most suitable option. You don’t have to wait for them to do it, you can call and ask for the rebooking, but first research alternatives that are acceptable to you. 

Your problem with this one, assuming it’s KE908 connecting to KE411, is that those are the only KE flights LHR-ICN and ICN-AKL on those dates, so unless KE411 also has a schedule change (and you could take a “wait and see” approach in case this happens), they couldn’t get you there by 26th on this routing. You do have the right under UK261 to be rebooked on other carriers, but airlines tend to try and deny people this right if the alternative is not a partner carrier and the change happens outside the compensation window. 

skycatcher

This happened to us yesterday with BA. They changed the departure time of our flight to Belfast from LHR ( last flight if the day) to only allow 35 min transfer arriving from Shanghai. We contacted them and they agreed we wouldn't make it. Their solution was to book us in the next flight the following morning and for us to raise a complaint to get the overnight hotel refunded! We said that we wouldn't accept that and asked if they could reroute us (we aren't constrained by dates) and they eventually agreed to put us on a Qatar from Shanghai to Doha then BA to LHR and we'll be back in Belfast in the afternoon of by the following day.

Moral of the story don't just accept their first offer and explore alternates.

Ballard

You probably don’t have flexibility but if you’re able to leave the previous day and have 23 hours exploring Seoul, that would solve the problem and you’d get to see an exciting city.

As I say, probably not an option for you and I wouldn’t know whether the airline would allow it anyway. Just thought that I’d make the suggestion. 

Bonhomie

Ballard said:

You probably don’t have flexibility but if you’re able to leave the previous day and have 23 hours exploring Seoul, that would solve the problem and you’d get to see an exciting city.

As I say, probably not an option for you and I wouldn’t know whether the airline would allow it anyway. Just thought that I’d make the suggestion. 

Erm....no. It would be freezing and they'd have nowhere to stay. Perhaps if the airline threw in a hotel room.

Ballard

Bonhomie said:

Ballard said:

You probably don’t have flexibility but if you’re able to leave the previous day and have 23 hours exploring Seoul, that would solve the problem and you’d get to see an exciting city.

As I say, probably not an option for you and I wouldn’t know whether the airline would allow it anyway. Just thought that I’d make the suggestion. 

Erm....no. It would be freezing and they'd have nowhere to stay. Perhaps if the airline threw in a hotel room.

I wasn’t suggesting that they would want to sleep on the streets. If they were interested they’d book a hotel room. Seoul has plenty of them.

I have been to South Korea in November and it was very cold at night but very warm during the day. It might be a bit colder at the end of December but I don’t think that it would be unmanageable. Despite the warm weather at their destination, they may well have a winter jacket to get them to and from the airport at home. 

patsydecline

SW17 said:

Airlines cannot sell a connection on a single ticket that falls below the agreed Minimum Connecting Time (MCT). When a schedule change brings a connection below MCT, they are obliged to rebook passengers to a legitimate connection. MCT at ICN for international to international connections varies depending on the exact combination of flights, but it never goes below 45 mins, so at 30 mins KE will have no choice but to rebook you. 

Airline processes for handling such rebookings vary, some are quicker than others, some manual and some automated. When the alternative is done by the system, it often may not be the most suitable option. You don’t have to wait for them to do it, you can call and ask for the rebooking, but first research alternatives that are acceptable to you. 

Your problem with this one, assuming it’s KE908 connecting to KE411, is that those are the only KE flights LHR-ICN and ICN-AKL on those dates, so unless KE411 also has a schedule change (and you could take a “wait and see” approach in case this happens), they couldn’t get you there by 26th on this routing. You do have the right under UK261 to be rebooked on other carriers, but airlines tend to try and deny people this right if the alternative is not a partner carrier and the change happens outside the compensation window. 

I'm happy to say that the airline have now changed the time of the second flight so there is a decent amount of time between flights, so I hope it will go okay.  I really appreciate that you put my mind at ease before that happened though.  This forum is so helpful, thank you so much.