Air India flight nightmare compensation query

NJ69x

saajan_12 said:

Is this partly also due to father asking for assistance with boarding and navigating the airport? Asking as you phrase it as "them failing to get him on " rather than the gate closing. 

If so, are there any guidelines given when requesting the assistance? If there's a limited number of assistance staff and they de-board passengers needing assistance last when there's more space to maneuver, then that could further increase the time needed for a connection. 

No there were many other passengers who also didn't make the connection. Everyone who was booked on that route had to fly via New Delhi. The route was not logistically possible and it should not have been sold 

eskbanker

NJ69x said:

eskbanker said:

NJ69x said:

We did receive an email from Flightcatchers saying there had been a change to the flight. I telephoned them about 2-3 weeks ago to ask what had changed and the agent said it's nothing to worry about and it's only a change of the flight code for the BOM - ATQ leg but it's the same flight. He said everything else was the same and there was nothing to worry about. Clearly in hindsight that wasn't the case and I should have looked at the schedule more closely but I took his word for it.

Did the email just advise you to phone them, or did it actually have details of the amended booking included/attached?

This is the email they sent me on 31/01/25, I called them after I got it and was told nothing to worry about it's just the flight code has changed for BOM to ATQ leg. There was a pdf attached with the updated schedule.

So they did notify you of the schedule change in advance?  If they did so in writing, but you chose to phone them to ask as well and were given a contradictory steer verbally, then clearly that shouldn't have happened but I don't think you're going to have a leg to stand on if the schedule attached to the email correctly showed the revised flights....

bagand96

NJ69x said:

saajan_12 said:

Is this partly also due to father asking for assistance with boarding and navigating the airport? Asking as you phrase it as "them failing to get him on " rather than the gate closing. 

If so, are there any guidelines given when requesting the assistance? If there's a limited number of assistance staff and they de-board passengers needing assistance last when there's more space to maneuver, then that could further increase the time needed for a connection. 

No there were many other passengers who also didn't make the connection. Everyone who was booked on that route had to fly via New Delhi. The route was not logistically possible and it should not have been sold 

The route was fine when it was sold. The schedule change however meant that the connection wasn't viable. This happens. Air India did what was required and notified your agent.

There were likely rebooking or cancellation options, but unfortunately your travel agent didn't act on this and appears to have fobbed you off with saying it was just a flight code change.

Did you not open the PDF and compare with the original booking, noticing the connection was now very tight? 

Westin

bagand96 said:

NJ69x said:

saajan_12 said:

Is this partly also due to father asking for assistance with boarding and navigating the airport? Asking as you phrase it as "them failing to get him on " rather than the gate closing. 

If so, are there any guidelines given when requesting the assistance? If there's a limited number of assistance staff and they de-board passengers needing assistance last when there's more space to maneuver, then that could further increase the time needed for a connection. 

No there were many other passengers who also didn't make the connection. Everyone who was booked on that route had to fly via New Delhi. The route was not logistically possible and it should not have been sold 

The route was fine when it was sold. The schedule change however meant that the connection wasn't viable. This happens. Air India did what was required and notified your agent.

There were likely rebooking or cancellation options, but unfortunately your travel agent didn't act on this and appears to have fobbed you off with saying it was just a flight code change.

Did you not open the PDF and compare with the original booking, noticing the connection was now very tight? 

Key question.

NJ69x

bagand96 said:

NJ69x said:

saajan_12 said:

Is this partly also due to father asking for assistance with boarding and navigating the airport? Asking as you phrase it as "them failing to get him on " rather than the gate closing. 

If so, are there any guidelines given when requesting the assistance? If there's a limited number of assistance staff and they de-board passengers needing assistance last when there's more space to maneuver, then that could further increase the time needed for a connection. 

No there were many other passengers who also didn't make the connection. Everyone who was booked on that route had to fly via New Delhi. The route was not logistically possible and it should not have been sold 

The route was fine when it was sold. The schedule change however meant that the connection wasn't viable. This happens. Air India did what was required and notified your agent.

There were likely rebooking or cancellation options, but unfortunately your travel agent didn't act on this and appears to have fobbed you off with saying it was just a flight code change.

Did you not open the PDF and compare with the original booking, noticing the connection was now very tight? 

I took a quick look at the updated schedule mainly looking at flight departure from LHR and flight arrival at ATQ and couldn't see any difference so I called the agent to query it.

I accept I could have looked at the schedule in more detail but that still doesn't excuse Air India sending an updated schedule for a flight route that was impossible to do. The updated flight schedule should have been for the actual route my dad had to take via Delhi as that's what they planned to do all along. We were misled even at the point of checking in at LHR, the check in staff continued the ruse saying everything was totally fine.

Why send the passenger an updated schedule when it's not something that was logistically possible to honour. The travel agent will just say they passed the message on to the customer but equally the monkey on the phone should have picked up on this anomaly as thats their job and expertise. Instead he fobbed me off with wrong information. I feel air India are at fault here. They should have either cancelled the booking or informed us the new route would be via Delhi.

I still intend to do this uk261 claim, even if it isn't successful at least I hope if enough people complain about this kind of issue it stops airlines like air India doing it 

bagand96

NJ69x said:

bagand96 said:

NJ69x said:

saajan_12 said:

Is this partly also due to father asking for assistance with boarding and navigating the airport? Asking as you phrase it as "them failing to get him on " rather than the gate closing. 

If so, are there any guidelines given when requesting the assistance? If there's a limited number of assistance staff and they de-board passengers needing assistance last when there's more space to maneuver, then that could further increase the time needed for a connection. 

No there were many other passengers who also didn't make the connection. Everyone who was booked on that route had to fly via New Delhi. The route was not logistically possible and it should not have been sold 

The route was fine when it was sold. The schedule change however meant that the connection wasn't viable. This happens. Air India did what was required and notified your agent.

There were likely rebooking or cancellation options, but unfortunately your travel agent didn't act on this and appears to have fobbed you off with saying it was just a flight code change.

Did you not open the PDF and compare with the original booking, noticing the connection was now very tight? 

I still intend to do this uk261 claim, even if it isn't successful at least I hope if enough people complain about this kind of issue it stops airlines like air India doing it 

Whilst re-issuing the schedule with a mis-connect is odd, what you don't know is what exactly the reschedule email from Air India said, as the emails you got were Travel Agent generated. 

Any agent worth their salt should have picked up that the revised schedule wasn't doable. Unfortunately most of the OTAs have very few staff and the reschedule was likely just forwarded via an automated process. However it's very poor indeed that the agent couldn't see it when you phoned up to query it, it really should have become apparent at that time. 

By the time you got to LHR there would have been little anyone could do and boarding the LHR-DEL flight was probably the best course of action.

When using a Travel Agent you're putting a third party between yourself and the airline, and in this case your chosen agent seriously let you down. It also shows that it's always worth passengers thoroughly checking their schedules after any changes to pick up issues at that point.