exmike

So I was taking a 36 hour trip to CUN from SFO for a friends wedding. I took a redeye from SFO-ATL which was delayed for mx issues, taking off an hour late. They announced that they rebooked several destinations for which they felt the connection would be missed, including CUN. As it turns out, the plane landed in ATL with about 45 minutes before my original CUN flight was to leave, and in fact, it was the same plane going on to CUN, so there was no reason to rebook me at all. When I went to the desk to confirm my seat, they told me I was rebooked on a flight five hours later, and that they had given my seat away already on my original flight and it was fully booked! How is this even remotely fair to me? I understand them trying to proactively rebook missed connections, but I clearly did not need to be rebooked. They essentially took my seat away and sold it to someone else, without my consent to rebook. I have a feeling arguing with them will go nowhere, but missing 5 hours of a 36 hour trip really sucked, especially since I missed a day of being outside in the sun in CUN. Anyone care to chime in?

Phoenixtinct

That sounds bizarre. If you flew in on the same plane that was heading out to CUN, I don't see any reason why you would have to be rebooked. If this was done automatically, maybe the computer didn't know it was the same plane. Also, there could have been other issues at ATL causing other passengers to be delayed/missing connections to CUN, so they accommodated them when a seat opened up. Unfortunately, if there are no seats left on the plane, they can't put you back on without removing another passenger. Not sure what AirTran's policies are in situations like that. I would send in a complaint and see what happens. It's quite unfortunate this happened but without more information, I don't know what else to say.