MSPeconomist

I may be confused, but I'm not sure that the cruise was actually departing from Miami. I suspect that she had a further flight to someplace in South America to meet up with the cruise ship. Otherwise, it would have been an extremely long cruise either through the Panama Canal or around the tip of South America. My impression is that the Galapagos cruises generally leave from someplace closer, although then they would be shorter cruises. It's then hard to interpret the $10,000 fare, even for a luxury cruise, although she might have booked a suite and there could have been a ground tour included. Yet the discussion so far just says cruise to the Galapagos and doesn't mention anything else. My take is that $10,000 is a high price for just Galapagos but a low price for a cruise RT from Florida, although admittedly I'm thinking in USA$ rather than CAN$, which would make somewhat of a difference.

If Lindblad used separate plane tickets or didn't allow enough margin of error for international travel, it looks even worse. Moreover, if she was flying on from MIA, flying into FLL is unlikely to have helped.

Wpgjetse

They are not refundable in actually getting your money back, but they are refundable and getting a credit. YYT82 is basically saying you don't loss your money if you don't take the flight you bought.

jc94

Just my two cents here, speaking as someone who has both done a Galapagos cruise albeit at a much much lower cost (ie: I personally left from a place on the south tip of Ecuador with a 600 mile flight out) and also someone who has spent that sort of money on a cruise.

In both cases, we flew in about (arrived) two days in advance. This was the recommendation in case of delays, although it was more about weather and 'these flights are always late' over the chance of being IBDed.

And if it makes a difference, in both cases, I flew Y and spent ~14h on planes (both had connections). And for the more expensive cruise, the economy flights were ~$3k, and I think included advance seat selection.

I checked in for both at T-24 outbound, airport on the return, neither involved AC, and both had acceptable IT. One did involve KLM who provided 50 Euro (KLM) vouchers for no IFE on the 12h flight as we walked off.

So some of the blame lies with the TA, to me. Because it's April and we live in Canada.

That said, I still don't agree with IDB at all and have probably posted this before, agree with all who have stated that VDB should be offered until someone takes the offer. I'd even go further and say that those who take VDB should be bumped up a class if there are spare seats on the next flight.

Now the post actually says checked in just under 3h before the flight. While I'll check in at t-24 where possible, sometimes it is not. I've been out to places where we didn't get any kind of connection.

AC along with most airlines says to get to the airport 3h before the flight. Possibly even 2 for US ones.

Lets look at a recent UA example (post the guy in F, pre beating the Doc). Put up a sign offering $xxx for n volunteers. I don't fly UA enough to know if this is normal but I've never seen AC do it.

I believe UA got their 10 volunteers for U$150 on a 2h E190 flight that cost - in advance about U$140 (non-flex non-basic Y), so I don't know what would have happened if they only got 9.

Oh, and I still think AC ability to deal with re-bookings could use significant work. Like making the webpage/app that allows it actually function.

CZAMFlyer

Once again, I'm amazed by the sheer volume of people blaming the passenger and calling her stupid. There have been several eloquent rebuttals to this attitude, perhaps the best was written by ridefar. Flying the day of cruise departure in April is an entirely reasonable practice, and I'm unsure what the airline can't or won't take care of their customers in a timely fashion.

The very nature of IRROPS is that in most cases they can be foreseen with surprising accuracy. AC isn't alone in displaying shoddy contingency planning.

Are you aware of the attendance records in some US markets? Try finding a walk-up ticket to even a regular seasons Caps game. You might be unpleasantly surprised. The league may indeed want all unsold tickets to go through them, but in practice, this doesn't happen. I'm afraid you have latched upon a poor analogy to help bolster your case in the AC example.

jc94

I'll respond to this instead of editing my post.

I am not blaming the passenger at all. I am blaming the TA; and AC.
It's good the TA (or company) has sorted out the replacement cruise, but I still think they should review their policies if they are booking same days for departing cruises.

Allan38103

QUOTE:
There are a number of details missing here.
ENDQUOTE

Approaching one hundred responses and STILL details missing. But hey, this is FT after all; one doesn't need details to post his opinion.

The only relevant post I've seen is the observation that the passenger's connection was in Miami, and the $10K cruise didn't actually leave from there. (But that is also just speculation)

tcook052

I would disagree as there are far more things beyond being bumped that can and have prevented passenger from reaching their ship including adverse weather or flight cancellations or delays. Flying in a day prior doesn't completely eliminate the possibility of problems but it goes a long way to offer a buffer against them when they do occur.

Wpgjetse

There maybe some attendance records being set in the U.S., but on NHL.com, there are still unsold Cap tickets for tonight's game.

stevendorechester

The passenger's mistake was to book the flight to arrive the same day and not purchased insurance. What if the flight had gone wx or mx? One question about all of these AC overbooking stories. Did the airline solicit volunteers, as they are legally required to do? It doesn't seem clear in all cases. I think there are stiff fines if they don't.

drvannostren

"Didn't have a valid ticket" sounds like someone either misspoke, or someone misheard. Not having a valid ticket likely wouldn't have allowed her past CATSA/Border control.

She also checked in at 8 for a 1055 flight. I'll never understand why people don't check in online. I know I obsess over it, I often check in at like T-2359, but at least then I know what my seat is, if I didn't already have one and if there's traffic on the way to the airport or something I just need to make the boarding cut-off if I have no bags.

She's not getting a public apology. So stop fishing for one.

Now, as my AC defence comes to a close, I have to ask, why her? I don't care if you had a $50 car rental or a $10,000 cruise, but if she had a connection booked, I'd hope they wouldn't bump her. That being said...notice how they specifically mentioned the cost of the AC flight and not the flight as a whole? How much do we all wanna bet she had booked herself a small buffer then was flying on another carrier out of MIA? There's fault on both sides here, plenty of blame to go around, but also why was there no mention of VDB? I've been on something like 150 flights in the past 18 months and been offered a VDB 0 times. Now I'm not usually at the boarding gate super early, but even on UA where they ask or volunteers at check-in, I've only had that 5-6 times. On a rouge flight to MIA my guess is most people are either getting on a cruise or going on a family vacation, so maybe finding a volunteer would be tough, but with multiple flights a day to FLL/MIA/MCO and then connecting flights on other carriers, you'd think 1 person would take the VDB.

Guava

I would agree with that. If I think about the time we spent about $9000 USD for a 7 days Silversea cruise in and around the Greek isles, factoring the exchange rate, that was well over $10000 CAD, we made sure we arrived 3 days before the cruise departed especially coming from another continent and even though there were lot of flights to ATH. There are just too many things that could go wrong and the one day buffer may not be enough.

People who have cruised know you either arrive days before you cruise, especially if it's in a remote location with few flights, for instance, cruises departing from French Polynesia and treat those days as as your pre-cruise side trips or you take your chances and assume the consequences. I tend to agree AC's responsibility here is limited to the $800 bump voucher + additional compensation for poor customer service (i.e. false claim about invalid ticket), but that's about it. The blame regrading missing the cruise should not entirely fall on AC, in this case.

I am surprised that Galapagos cruise is $10,000 / head. Maybe she booked a nice suite cabin or maybe she was travelling solo as she seemed to be hinting. In any event, Galapagos is what I would consider a remote location due to limited flights to/from there, perhaps even more so than Tahiti. Nobody in their sound mind is going to book an upscale cruise in the 5 figures and expect to arrive at the cruise location same day. If the flights were handled by the tour company, it is unthinkable that would have been their recommendation as they tend to offer pre-cruise and/or post-cruise packages designed to create a buffer for these remote locations.

Lawyers are typically quite risk adverse, color me surprised this woman seemed to defy logic in every possible way.

epiphani

I don't understand why people insist on blaming AC for this.

AC overbooks. AC will bump. They say this. It's on their website. It's a risk. It's a well publicized risk. They offer compensation when it happens, and will rebook you on the next available flight.

Nothing about this case seems exceptional, and poor planning on the part of the passenger or the travel agent turned this into a story.

Guava

If you know me, you'd know I tend to take the side of the consumers. I am not blaming the passenger, I am simply surprised by some very obvious mishaps and logic errors that could have minimized the situation, even considering her inexperience wrt to flying.

Flying on the day of cruise departure is only advised if you are near that location and if there are several flights to that place. Even then, weather can still be unpredictable even in April - a sudden snowstorm is not unheard of.

canopus27

We've got to be careful about claiming that online checkin is a magic cure-all. If the aircraft is in an oversell situation, then some people are going to get GTE BP's. Having 100% of the flight checkin online, won't change that.

Now, it's likely that many people won't checkin online, and in that case the ones who did are more likely to be protected. I certainly checkin online, and I tell my friends & family to do the same.

But that doesn't make it a magic cure-all. A real solution would be for AC to stop doing IDB's, and be prepared for an open market on VDBs.

SamuelS

To add some detail.

The cruise was not sailing out of Miami.

She was booked to fly on AC to Miami, to then connect later that evening to a charter flight with Lindblad/National Geographic to Ecuador. All guests convene in Miami to take a charter flight for this trip.

From what I can gather, she had about a 6-hour connection window in Miami. There were two later flights she could have feasibly taken on AA and WS that would have made her connection, however her luggage was not returned to her for a number of hours and by that time getting onto one of those flights was not possible/past cut-off.

As stated in the article, if AC would have informed her earlier instead of at the gate after doing US pre-clearance and checking her bag, she could have potentially got on another carrier.

AC doesn't interline with WS, but possibly AC could have reprotected her onto AA or a connecting option.

I'm actually shocked at all the AC love-in's on here that say that this isn't remotely a valid complaint. Really?

Delta - as an example - alerts you during online check-in of an oversell, and proactively solicits compensation "bids". They call the volunteers at the gate, and if they didn't get enough through OLCI or Kiosk, the offers go up until they get enough takers.

I'm sorry, but AC could absolutely have handled this better and the people that think AC did nothing wrong here - I'm sorry that you've become so jaded that you accept pretty much no level of proactive customer service.

What we need in Canada apparently is regulation seeing as AC can't behave itself (WS doesn't routinely overbook, so in Canada - it's pretty much just AC).

If AC was mandated to proactively solicit volunteers, to pay higher amounts of VDB, and be required to pay a (much) higher level of IDB compensation, maybe things will change to the positive.