Comment by akersten
1 day ago
> They promise to get you to your destination.
Critically they promise "by a certain time" as well. Surely with so many miles you are aware of the "significant disruption to my travel plans" aspect to getting compensated for a service that they failed to deliver.
Plane crews timing out on the tarmac at midnight forcing everyone aboard to lose a day of travel is not a "sob story" it is a systemic and purposeful optimization on the airline's part, a gamble that they can put up enough customer service phone menus and hoops that they only have to comp a small portion of customers whose time and money they've misappropriated.
ETA: my example above is to point out that even in the common failure cases airlines are awful, and as OP shares, even worse in the rare engine failure case. Yeah, they don't directly control that the engine failed (unless we start talking about how lack of maintenance and overworked mechanics contribute to that, which we should, and is under their control btw) but a hundred bucks for being stranded in the jungle is an insult no matter how you slice it
Can you find language in the ticket contract that says “by a certain time"?
It would kinda surprise me if that’s true. There’s an enormous difference in cost to provide a best effort, usually fine service, and a contract to get you there by a deadline. I could be mistaken but I bet there is no such promise.
Crews "time out" due to regulations governing duty hours, not airline policy. Many things can delay or disrupt travel, including weather, mechanical problems (which to a degree may be on the airline but random failures happen too), closures or bad weather at your destination, or at other airports that are creating a backlog of diversions at your destination. It's unreasonable to expect that even the best-intentioned airline can avoid all of that all of the time.
Travel insurance is can be purchased for situations where a delay or canceled flight would create unusual costs for the traveler.
> they promise "by a certain time"
Better call your AI company for a refund. That my friend was an hallucination and you've been promised no such thing.