Dear Tripped Up,
We are two active and nimble seniors who set off last May – aged 79 and 82 – on a two-stage British Airways business class trip connecting at London Heathrow Airport from Los Angeles to Athens. Our first flight was delayed by about an hour, but even though we had to exit via stairs and take a bus to the terminal instead of using the normal jet bridge, we still rushed through international arrivals and security and reached our departure gate at 11:25 a.m., five minutes before our boarding pass said it was closing. Nevertheless, we were refused boarding, our seats were already taken and we were rebooked on a much later flight to Athens, where we only arrived after 1am. I filed a complaint with the airline, but the representative responded nonsensically that we didn’t make the connecting flight (even though we arrived at the gate on time) and that our total delay was only 57 minutes, which wasn’t enough to qualify for compensation (even though we arrived in Athens over seven hours late). Should British Airways compensate us? And what rules apply to flight connections and gate closing times? Can you help? David and Valerie, Claremont, California.
Dear David and Valerie,
Let’s start with the easy part. British Airways shouldn’t and doesn’t have to pay each of you just 520 pounds – just over $700 – under a British consumer protection law designed to protect air travelers, known unofficially as UK261.
Now get ready for the rest: The airline has denied you boarding your connecting flight, not because of connecting rules or gate closing times, but because it gave up your seats hours before, while you were still in the air – or maybe even before your flight left Los Angeles.
In other words, your frantic rush through the terminal was in vain. And annoyingly, the airline most likely did this at least partly for your own good.
First I help with the money, and then I explain the rest.
You forwarded me the replies British Airways sent you refusing compensation. I agree that they don’t make sense. I contacted British Airways and shortly afterwards you received a message from a customer service representative called Wendy Epperson “sincerely apologizing for the disruption” and confirming that you were entitled to payment under the law. You told me you have now received the £1,040 that should have been paid to you a long time ago.
Before domestic travelers get their hopes up, there is no comparable law in the United States. Although bills modeled on UK261 and its European Union counterpart, EU261, were introduced in both the Senate and House of Representatives in December, they are not exactly making their way through Congress.
Now the hard part: Why did British Airways give away your seats long before you heroically rushed 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, some reading about flight operations, and a telephone interview with Vikrant Vaze, an engineering professor at Dartmouth who has studied such operations for nearly two decades.
Airlines have excellent tools to help them make decisions, Professor Vaze said. But they can’t know everything, for example how active and agile a particular pair of passengers is or how long the queues are in the terminal.
When your plane took off late from Los Angeles International Airport that morning, British Airways would have known your connecting flight was at risk. If the airline had held your original seats on the London-Athens route until the gates closed and only then looked for seats on a replacement flight, all remaining flights to Athens that day might have been fully booked and you would have been stuck in London for a night or more. This would have made both you and the airline very unhappy – you would have lost part of your trip and British Airways would most likely have had to fly with two empty business class seats, pay a premium for your last minute hotel room and pay for your meals and transport.
So it may have been the best solution for the airline to put you on a later flight, even if it ended up worse for you.
Many variables could have played a role in the decision. Perhaps the terminal was less crowded or the airspace over Heathrow was less congested than usual, giving you unexpectedly more time to connect. Maybe someone (or a system) noticed when departing from Los Angeles that there were so few seats available on subsequent flights from London to Athens that it made sense to put you in one of those seats. Other passengers on the way to Athens may also have missed their flight. Airlines must balance a number of competing interests.
“To their credit, they operate in a very fast-paced, dynamic environment,” Professor Vaze said.
Ms. Epperson’s email does not provide details but does provide the reason for the change. “Our Flight Connections team monitors delayed incoming flights,” she wrote, “and proactively rebooks affected customers to ensure they are protected on a later flight and avoid possible overnight delays.”
But her next line is surprising: “In your case,” she wrote, British Airways “should have rebooked you on a replacement flight without deleting you from your original booking.”
If British Airways’ policy is to reserve seats for every customer with a close connection on a later flight and hold them free on the current flight until the last second, that is a very customer-friendly stance.
But she said “in your case” and Professor Vaze told me that passenger status and cabin can be important in such situations, so I wrote back to you and asked. It turns out you had Platinum Pro (David) and Platinum (Valerie) status with American, a British Airways partner, and of course you were sitting in business class. So if anyone here was entitled to special treatment, it might have been you.
Of course, this is just speculation, but one thing is for sure: as soon as you turn on your phone in London, you should be waiting for emails and text messages informing you of the rebooking. It wouldn’t have saved you the indignity, but it would have saved you that impressive but ultimately useless sprint to the goal.
If you need advice on an optimal travel plan that went wrong, Email TrippedUp@nytimes.com.
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