Comment by oleggromov
8 months ago
I once booked a plane ticket from my home town airport to another country. The purchase notification said something like "PVA" instead of "POV". I looked it up and turned out, the newly built airport that had this exact code was about to open. In a week or so, so I assumed that I'm indeed flying from the new one and forgot about it. The purchase was made through a booking aggregator similar to Expedia.
On the day of travel I took a taxi to the new airport, which is 40 km outside the city. The taxi driver couldn't care less about where I was going. Upon arrival, there was much fewer people than I expected but I shrugged it off. At the entrance though I was asked where I was going and if I was an employee. Apparently the new airport was still closed and my fight was from the old, still functioning one. The one with the code not shown in the ticket purchase receipts.
Panicking since it was only about an hour until departure, I took a taxi back to the old airport, which was a desperate 40-50 minute drive to only realize the plane had already left.
I was flying abroad, with a connection the next morning, about 10 hours later. So I thought that the problem could be solved by just arriving there by any other flight, which I booked almost immediately. However, the airline representative (yes, there was a human to speak to that I could reach easily by phone) told me that a no-show for any segment of the flight invalidates all subsequent ones. There was no way I could convince her that it wasn't my fault. Perhaps there was a rigid process in place that disallowed her from helping, even though I'd make it to the second flight on time.
I ended up buying 2 new tickets, of course more expensive and less convenient ones. This taught me an important and rather expensive lesson on why connected flights with a single airline are sometimes the worst.
Funnily enough, I was bitten by this rule one more time when I didn't show to a flight in to the country due to visa issues (it was covid time) and wasn't allowed on the flight out of it because I didn't show up to the 1st flight, the flights being 1 week apart - but booked in one go.
As to the previous situation, I managed to get compensated by the airline (not even the intermediary!) about a year later after posting a huge rant on Facebook and getting their attention to the situation.
> There was no way I could convince her that it wasn't my fault. Perhaps there was a rigid process in place that disallowed her from helping, even though I'd make it to the second flight on time.
Yeah they generally have the capability to prevent that auto cancellation of your segments (within a certain time frame) but in this case unfortunately they were unwilling or it was too late to catch it.
It's generally to protect revenue because buying A-B-C instead of B-C can be cheaper, and hoards of people used to just segments to save money. So they just assume everyone is trying to cheat them.
> It's generally to protect revenue because buying A-B-C instead of B-C can be cheaper, and hoards of people used to just segments to save money. So they just assume everyone is trying to cheat them.
Isn't it ridiculous in the first place that flying A-B-C is less expensive than B-C? These are the pricing games airlines deliberately play to make more money out of nothing.
This is just an oversimplification though. If you had any experience about travel industry (or logistics) you would understand things much better.
Here is an example for you (from logistics): Sending a truck from Berlin to - say - Györ may cost 3 times less than sending the same truck from Györ to Berlin - even on the same exact date.
Is this because shipping companies try to make money out of nothing, for you?
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>Isn't it ridiculous in the first place that flying A-B-C is less expensive than B-C?
It's no more ridiculous than something being cheaper at a liquidation store than a retail store.
OMG this stirred my memories. I was interviewing with companies in Amsterdam and Berlin. The Berlin recruiter made onward and return flight bookings for me from India. I though went to Amsterdam first on a separate flight because I was juggling the schedule. I thought it’s no big deal didn’t bother informing the recruiter of my side arrangement.
I then took a train to Berlin from Amsterdam, finished the interview and went to the airport for my return flight that was booked by the recruiter. To my absolute horror I was told that since my onward journey was a no show the whole PNR was cancelled. I felt like an idiot. Since then I double and triple check whenever I’m booking flight tickets.
Sorry to hear that. Sounds like not a lot of fun!
> So I thought that the problem could be solved by just arriving there by any other flight, which I booked almost immediately.
Why did you do that? Especially when that cost you extra money?
You should have talked to the airline directly, explained you'd missed your flight because they gave you the wrong airport, and the airline would have rebooked you and everything would have been fine. People miss flights all the time and this is an entirely normal process.
It's been standard practice for a long time if you miss a first leg, that you forfeit the rest. They're going to reuse those seats for e.g. other people who missed their original flights. It's a type of flexibility built into the whole system.
Connecting flights are super useful because you can work with the airline to reschedule the whole thing, and the airline is responsible if you can't make a connection because an earlier leg is delayed.
I truly don't understand why you would have taken it into your own hands to buy a separate replacement ticket on your own, instead of talking to the airline. Even in your second example, why didn't you work with the airline to reschedule your missed flight? Even if they for some reason can't reschedule, they will often keep your return flight valid if you have an obviously good reason (e.g. a visa issue during COVID). But you do have to contact them immediately.
I'm sorry you didn't know how all this worked, but when in doubt, contact customer service ASAP to see if they can help. Don't just go buy separate tickets on your own, and then assume later legs will still be valid. That's not how it works.
This reminds me of the quote "I know just enough to be dangerous"
I wonder how long until we have an AI on our shoulder saying "Hey why are you booking a new flight, there is a better option"
> explained you'd missed your flight because they gave you the wrong airport, and the airline would have rebooked you and everything would have been fine
Do you really believe this? There are a lot of bad airlines. Enough that a terrible airline is often the best option.
This usually just leads to getting dicked around for so long until you need to just do the original plan anyways. It only works if you have infinite time. Ideally he could just book a new flight and send them the bill
Yes, sorry for your problem but no-shows automatically invalidate everything else. If you decide to cancel part of a trip due to unexpected events, train strikes or whatever that is not directly under control of the airline itself you must contact them and make sure they will not cancel the rest (including the return flight).
Leaving aside the no-show rule, which doesn't make much sense to me, this situation is a good example of an accountability sink.
The intermediary I booked the tickets with made an obvious mistake and showed the wrong airport code. Maybe the airport opening was meant to happen earlier, and the intermediary had already updated their emails or something like that. They refused to do anything meaningful and did not even acknowledge their mistake.
The fact that I was compensated by the airline that had nothing to do with this mistake is even more astonishing to me, although they were obviously protecting their brand reputation.
I was not trying to dispute the accountability part. Btw my company was hit by the delayed opening of BER airport. Colleagues had to rebook thousands of tickets because the BER iata code had to be "retconned" to use TXL again... so I am more than happy to sympathetic with your problem, trust me.
>Leaving aside the no-show rule, which doesn't make much sense to me
A->B->C can be cheaper than B->C. If people could skip flight A, then people already in B would buy the cheaper A->B->C.
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