Originally Posted by
chuck1
I am a travel agent and I can assure you my clients do call United and modify their own bookings - not often - but it can and does happen - especially on day of departure and late at night or on weekends.
That said, if I saw a modification, I would never void a ticket, which by the way can only be done within 24 hours after the sale.
Now I do know all of my clients and don't take new ones without referrals from existing ones but it is very strange that even
an OTA would void a ticket if they saw a record modified.
I am confused that if United changed the record why the e-ticket didn't change to EXCH (exchange) status which would have made it impossible for the agency to change the status to VOID. I guess they could have revalidated it which is a more simple process where the agency can retain control but rarely done any longer.
I would have been nice if the gate would have let her go and follow up with agency accounting later and perhaps issued a debit memo to the agency or whatever was necessary to get her there.
I am a Travel Agent too and in my training I was told that all tickets have a history of who made the change and on what date and which agent did the change. If the change was done by the Passenger it would say PAX called in to change flt from UA 874 to LH454 on 013118 at 13:50 hours. Change fee of $200 was collected by Agent 3Z45 PNR3Q7A5 See Ticket Exchange#24040 etc. This is to ensure the security of the airline and passenger.
Originally Posted by
cjermain
I may be misreading the posts, but I don't think anyone has suggested that the GA just unilaterally let her fly.
This situation was quite unique in that they were asking someone who boarded with a valid ticket to deplane. Without the passenger's knowledge, the ticket was cancelled. This is a fantastic set of circumstances. I don't think any precedent would have been set.
I think the point is that a front line employee, upon encountering an extraordinary situation might consider various options to make things come out right. This could include a call to management to see what could be done. And if nothing could be done, or if the plane simply had to push back right away, some sympathy would have gone a long way. A good rule is: don't say things to a customer that won't look good printed in the paper tomorrow.
That said, I get the point that none of us were there, and some have suggested that the reporting is quite biased against UA. Plus almost everyone agrees that the real fault for the whole situation is with the agent. So I wouldn't judge UA too harshly.
How was the passenger allowed through security without a valid ticket? Was the ticket cancelled before or after the passeger cleared security? It makes me wonder if the TSA Boarding Pass scanner has a real time link with the airline computer reservation systems? If there was a security risk the counter agent should be able to key in a code to invalidate the ticket and the TSA person who scans the boarding pass would be alerted to an issue and would escort the passenger to an office to further research the problem.
Also if the passenger had already cleared security the airline could ask the passenger to return to the ticket counter.