Originally Posted by
skywardhunter
A possible explanation (but not excuse) is simply that EK doesn't have a system that automatically rebooks or considers rebooking to co-terminals (airports that are considered equivalent for ticketing purposes), and not wanting to assume that a pax would be happy with a different airport in the same city. Of course with a 24h delay most would be, but if the delay was just 3 hours most pax might prefer the original airport as they would've already planned onwards from there. Their system may not be able to make intelligent decisions (or provide the information for agents to do so) taking into account such differences, hence it helps to know one's alternatives. Ideally they should've offered him HND as an option of course and asked which he prefers.
Agree with the logic. The only confounding thing in this case is that the passenger called from on board the delayed aircraft and specifically asked for protection on the HND flight.
Not that it should really make much of a difference, but this pax was on a full-flex, one way biz class ticket purchased a few days before departure... so basically top dollar excl First class. You'd think perhaps the agent could have made a note in the booking requesting HND, or sent a message to DXB to effect the same.