Dear Tripped Up,
We are two active, agile seniors who, last May, aged 79 and 82, left Los Angeles for Athens on a two-leg British Airways business class itinerary with a connection at London Heathrow Airport. Our first flight was delayed by about an hour, but although we had to go down stairs and take a bus to the terminal rather than using the normal jet jetway, we still made it through international arrivals and security and arrived at our boarding gate at 11:25 a.m., five minutes before our boarding pass said it would close. Despite this, we were refused boarding, told our seats had been filled and put on a much later flight to Athens, arriving after 1am. I filed a complaint with the airline, but the representative responded absurdly that we hadn’t made the connection (even though we arrived at the gate on time) and that our total delay was only 57 minutes, not enough to qualify for compensation (even though we arrived in Athens more than seven hours late). Should British Airways compensate us? And what are the rules regarding flight connections and gate closing times? Can you help? David and Valerie, Claremont, California.
Dear David and Valérie,
Let’s start with the easy part. British Airways not only should, but must, pay each of you 520 pounds – just over $700 – under a British consumer law protecting air travelers, informally known as UK261.
Now get ready for the rest: The airline refused to let you board your connecting flight, not because of rules about connections or gate closing times, but because they gave up your seats a few hours earlier, while you were still flying – or maybe even before you left Los Angeles.
In other words, your mad dash through the terminal was for nothing. And unfortunately, the airline most likely did this at least in part for your own good.
First I’ll help with the money, and then I’ll explain the rest to you.
You forwarded to me the responses that British Airways sent you refusing any compensation, which I agree makes no sense. I contacted British Airways and, shortly afterwards, received a message from a customer relations representative named Wendy Epperson offering “our sincere apologies for the disruption” and acknowledging that you were eligible for payment under the law. You told me you have now received the £1,040 you should have received a long time ago.
Before domestic travelers get their hopes up, the United States has no comparable law. Although bills modeled in part on UK261 and its European Union counterpart, EU261, were introduced in the Senate and House of Representatives in December, they do little to pave the way in Congress.
Now for the hard part: why did British Airways give up your seats well before your heroic dash to the gate?
An airline spokeswoman declined to answer my specific questions, but I have a pretty good idea of what might have happened thanks to Ms. Epperson’s email, my reading about flight operations and a telephone interview with Vikrant Vaze, an engineering professor at Dartmouth who has studied these operations for nearly two decades.
Airlines have excellent tools to help them make decisions, Professor Vaze said. But they cannot know everything, including, for example, the degree of activity and agility of a particular pair of passengers or the length of the queues in the terminal.
British Airways would have known your connection was in danger the moment your plane took off late from Los Angeles International Airport the previous afternoon. If the airline had kept your original seats on the London-Athens route until the doors closed and only then looked for seats on a replacement flight, it is possible that all remaining flights to Athens that day would have been full and you could have been stuck in London for a night or more. This would have made you and the airline very unhappy: you would have lost part of your trip and British Airways would probably have had to fly with two empty business class seats, pay extra for your last-minute hotel room, and cover your meals and transportation.
So for the airline, offering you a later flight might have been the best solution, although in this case it ended up being worse for you.
Many variables could have factored into the decision. Perhaps the terminal was less crowded or the airspace above Heathrow was less congested than usual, unexpectedly giving you more connecting time. Maybe someone (or a system) noticed, as you were taking off from Los Angeles, that there were so few seats left on subsequent London-Athens flights that it made sense to put you on one of them. Perhaps other Athens-bound passengers had also missed their flights. Airlines must balance a number of competing interests.
“It must be recognized that they operate in a dynamic and very rapidly changing environment,” Professor Vaze said.
Ms. Epperson’s email does not provide details, but it does give the reasoning behind the change. “Our Flight Connections team monitors late incoming flights,” she wrote, “and proactively books affected customers to ensure they are protected on a later flight, avoiding potential overnight delays.”
But her next sentence was surprising: “In your case,” she wrote, British Airways “should have rebooked you on another backup flight without withdrawing you from your original reservation.”
If British Airways’ policy is to reserve seats on a later flight while holding them on the current flight until the last second for every customer with a close connection, this is a very customer-friendly position.
But she said “in your case”, and Professor Vaze told me that passenger status and cabin can matter in such situations, so I wrote back to ask you about that. Turns out you have Platinum Pro (David) and Platinum (Valerie) status on British Airways partner American, and of course you were in business class. So if anyone got special treatment here, it might be you.
This is of course just speculation, but one thing is for sure: as soon as you turned on your phone in London, you should have received emails and texts informing you of the new booking. It wouldn’t have spared you the outrage, but it would have spared you that impressive but ultimately pointless sprint towards the door.
If you need advice on an optimal travel plan gone wrong, email TrippedUp@PK Press Club.
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